And so am I under certain circumstances. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he has wisely

refrained from saying whether they are good things or bad things. It might perhaps be as wel if the world were to dream of, or even become wide awake to, some of the things that are being wrought by prayer. But the question is avowedly difficult. In the end Theobald got his

fel owship by a stroke of luck very soon after taking his degree, and was ordained in the autumn of the same year, 1825.CHAPTER IXMr Al aby was rector of Crampsford, a vil age a few miles from Cambridge.

He, too, had taken a good degree, had got a fel owship, and in the course of time had accepted a col ege living of about 400 pounds a year and a

house. His private income did not exceed 200 pounds a year. On

resigning his fel owship he married a woman a good deal younger than himself who bore him eleven children, nine of whom--two sons and seven daughters--were living. The two eldest daughters had married fairly wel , but at the time of which I am now writing there were stil five unmarried, of ages varying between thirty and twenty-two--and the sons were neither of them yet off their father's hands. It was plain that if anything were to happen to Mr Al aby the family would be left poorly off, and this made both Mr and Mrs Al aby as unhappy as it ought to have made them.Reader, did you ever have an income at best none too large, which died with you al except 200 pounds a year? Did you ever at the same time

have two sons who must be started in life somehow, and five daughters stil unmarried for whom you would only be too thankful to find

husbands--if you knew how to find them? If morality is that which, on the whole, brings a man peace in his declining years--if, that is to say, it is not an utter swindle, can you under these circumstances flatter

yourself that you have led a moral life?And this, even though your wife has been so good a woman that you have

not grown tired of her, and has not fal en into such il -health as lowers your own health in sympathy; and though your family has grown up

vigorous, amiable, and blessed with common sense. I know many old men and women who are reputed moral, but who are living with partners whom they have long ceased to love, or who have ugly disagreeable maiden daughters for whom they have never been able to find husbands--daughters whom they loathe and by whom they are loathed in secret, or sons whose

fol y or extravagance is a perpetual wear and worry to them. Is it moral for a man to have brought such things upon himself? Someone should do

for morals what that old Pecksniff Bacon has obtained the credit of having done for science.But to return to Mr and Mrs Al aby. Mrs Al aby talked about having married two of her daughters as though it had been the easiest thing in the world. She talked in this way because she heard other mothers do so, but in her heart of hearts she did not know how she had done it, nor

indeed, if it had been her doing at al . First there had been a young man in connection with whom she had tried to practise certain manoeuvres Page 22

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which she had rehearsed in imagination over and over again, but which she found impossible to apply in practice. Then there had been weeks of a

_wurra wurra_ of hopes and fears and little stratagems which as often as not proved injudicious, and then somehow or other in the end, there lay the young man bound and with an arrow through his heart at her daughter's feet. It seemed to her to be al a fluke which she could have little or no hope of repeating. She had indeed repeated it once, and might perhaps with good luck repeat it yet once again--but five times over! It was awful: why she would rather have three confinements than go through the wear and tear of marrying a single daughter.Nevertheless it had got to be done, and poor Mrs Al aby never looked at a

young man without an eye to his being a future son-in-law. Papas and mammas sometimes ask young men whether their intentions are honourable towards their daughters. I think young men might occasional y ask papas and mammas whether their intentions are honourable before they accept

invitations to houses where there are stil unmarried daughters."I can't afford a curate, my dear," said Mr Al aby to his wife when the

pair were discussing what was next to be done. "It wil be better to get some young man to come and help me for a time upon a Sunday. A guinea a Sunday wil do this, and we can chop and change til we get someone who suits." So it was settled that Mr Al aby's health was not so strong as it had been, and that he stood in need of help in the performance of his Sunday duty.Mrs Al aby had a great friend--a certain Mrs Cowey, wife of the celebrated Professor Cowey. She was what was cal ed a truly spiritual y minded woman, a trifle portly, with an incipient beard, and an extensive connection among undergraduates, more especial y among those who were

inclined to take part in the great evangelical movement which was then at its height. She gave evening parties once a fortnight at which prayer

was part of the entertainment. She was not only spiritual y minded, but, as enthusiastic Mrs Al aby used to exclaim, she was a thorough woman of the world at the same time and had such a fund of strong masculine good sense. She too had daughters, but, as she used to say to Mrs Al aby, she had been less fortunate than Mrs Al aby herself, for one by one they had married and left her so that her old age would have been desolate indeed if her Professor had not been spared to her.Mrs Cowey, of course, knew the run of al the bachelor clergy in the

University, and was the very person to assist Mrs Al aby in finding an eligible assistant for her husband, so this last named lady drove over one morning in the November of 1825, by arrangement, to take an early dinner with Mrs Cowey and spend the afternoon. After dinner the two ladies retired together, and the business of the day began. How they fenced, how they saw through one another, with what loyalty they pretended not to see through one another, with what gentle dal iance they prolonged the conversation discussing the spiritual fitness of this or

that deacon, and the other pros and cons connected with him after his spiritual fitness had been disposed of, al this must be left to the imagination of the reader. Mrs Cowey had been so accustomed to scheming on her own account that she would scheme for anyone rather than not

scheme at al . Many mothers turned to her in their hour of need and, provided they were spiritual y minded, Mrs Cowey never failed to do her best for them; if the marriage of a young Bachelor of Arts was not made Page 23

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in Heaven, it was probably made, or at any rate attempted, in Mrs Cowey's drawingroom.