Her experience had not been large, but the feeling based on it promised to have all the tenacity of a favorite prejudice.

Fortune had handed over the parish of Harden to a ritualist vicar.

Mrs.Elsmere's inherited Evangelicalism--she came from an Ulster county--rebelled against his doctrine, but the man himself was too lovable to be disliked.

Mrs.Elsmere knew a hero when she saw him.

And in his own narrow way, the small-headed emaciated vicar was a hero, and he and Mrs.Elsmere had soon tasted each other's quality, and formed a curious alliance, founded on true similarity in difference.
But the criticism thus warded off the vicar expended itself with all the more force on his subordinates.