If I want a horse, I shall ask for the chesnut.' Mr.Jerome was obliged to rest contented with this promise, and rode home sorrowfully, reproaching himself with not having said one thing he meant to say when setting out, and with having 'clean forgot' the arguments he had intended to quote from Mr.Stickney.
Mr.Jerome's was not the only mind that was seriously disturbed by the idea that the curate was over-working himself.

There were tender women's hearts in which anxiety about the state of his affections was beginning to be merged in anxiety about the state of his health.

Miss Eliza Pratt had at one time passed through much sleepless cogitation on the possibility of Mr.Tryan's being attached to some lady at a distance--at Laxeter, perhaps, where he had formerly held a curacy; and her fine eyes kept close watch lest any symptom of engaged affections on his part should escape her.

It seemed an alarming fact that his handkerchiefs were beautifully marked with hair, until she reflected that he had an unmarried sister of whom he spoke with much affection as his father's companion and comforter.

Besides, Mr.Tryan had never paid any distant visit, except one for a few days to his father, and no hint escaped him of his intending to take a house, or change his mode of living.