The children darted across them, whooping and laughing, and vanished in the further recess of the garden.
"All is for the best, blind mortals that we are; all is for the best," said the vicar, musingly, as his eyes rested upon the approaching pair.
"Certainly, my love; you are always right, and it is wicked to grumble.
Still, if you saw what a hole it was,--past patching, I fear!" "Look round," said Mr.Fielden, benevolently.

"How we grieved for them both; how wroth we were with William,--how sad for Susan! And now see them; they will be the better man and wife for their trial." "Has Susan then consented?
I was almost afraid she never would consent.
How often have I been almost angry with her, poor lamb, when I have heard her accuse herself of causing her sister's unhappiness, and declare with sobs that she felt it a crime to think of William Mainwaring as a husband." "I trust I have reasoned her out of a morbid sensibility which, while it could not have rendered Lucretia the happier, must have insured the wretchedness of herself and William.

But if Lucretia had not married, and so forever closed the door on William's repentance (that is, supposing he did repent), I believe poor Susan would rather have died of a broken heart than have given her hand to Mainwaring." "It was an odd marriage of that proud young lady's, after all," said Mrs.Fielden,--"so much older than she; a foreigner, too!" "But he is a very pleasant man, and they have known each other so long.
I did not, however, quite like a sort of cunning he showed, when I came to reflect on it, in bringing Lucretia back to the house; it looks as if he had laid a trap for her from the first." "Ten thousand pounds,--a great catch for a foreigner!" observed Mrs.
Fielden, with the shrewd instinct of her sex; and then she added, in the spirit of a prudent sympathy equally characteristic: "But I think you say Mr.Parchmount persuaded her to allow half to be settled on herself.
That will be a hold on him." "A bad hold, if that be all, Sarah.

There is a better,--he is a learned man and a scholar.

Scholars are naturally domestic, and make good husbands." "But you know he must be a papist!" said Mrs.Fielden.
"Umph!" muttered the vicar, irresolutely.
While the worthy couple were thus conversing, Susan and her lover, not having finished their conference, had turned back through the winding walk.
"Indeed," said William, drawing her arm closer to his side, "these scruples, these fears, are cruel to me as well as to yourself.