Mark's first thoughts when he woke on that morning flew back to Mr.Fothergill's invitation.

The duke had sent a special message to say how peculiarly glad he, the duke, would be to make acquaintance with him, the parson! How much of this message had been of Mr.Fothergill's own manufacture, that Mark Robarts did not consider.

He had obtained a living at an age when other young clergymen are beginning to think of a curacy, and he had obtained such a living as middle-aged parsons in their dreams regard as a possible Paradise for their old years.

Of course he thought that all these good things had been the results of his own peculiar merits.

Of course he felt that he was different from other parsons,--more fitted by nature for intimacy with great persons, more urbane, more polished, and more richly endowed with modern clerical well-to-do aptitudes.