VI
It was only two days after this eventful meeting that Vincent, idling and meditative as was natural in such a condition of mind, strayed into Masters’s shop to buy some books. It would have been difficult for him to have explained why he went there, except, perhaps, because it was the last place in the world which his masters at the chapel would have advised him to enter. For there was another bookseller in the town, an evangelical man, patronised by Mr. Bury, the whilom rector, where all the Tract Society’s publications were to be had, not to speak of a general range of literature quite wide enough for the minister of Salem. Masters’s was a branch of the London Masters, and, as might be supposed, was equally amazed and indignant at the intrusion of a Dissenter among its consecrated bookshelves. He was allowed to turn over all the varieties of the Christian Year on a side-table before any of the attendants condescended to notice his presence; and it proved so difficult to find the books he wanted, and so much more difficult to find anybody who would take the trouble of looking for them, that the young Nonconformist, who was sufficiently ready to take offence, began to get hot and impatient, and had all but strode out of the shop, with a new mortification to record to the disadvantage of Carlingford. But just as he began to get very angry, the door swung softly open, and a voice became audible, lingering, talking to somebody before entering. Vincent stopped speaking, and stared in the shopman’s astonished face when these tones came to his ear. He fell back instantly upon the side-table and the Christian Year, forgetting his own business, and what he had been saying—forgetting everything except that She was there, and that in another moment they would stand again within the same walls. He bent over the much-multiplied volume with a beating heart, poising in one hand a tiny miniature copy just made to slip within the pocket of an Anglican waistcoat, and in the other the big red-leaved and morocco-bound edition, as if weighing their respective merits—put beside himself, in fact, if the truth must be told, oblivious of his errand, his position—of everything but the fact that She was at the door. She came in with a sweet flutter and rustle of sound, a perfumed air entering with her, as the unsuspected enthusiast thought, and began to lavish smiles, for which he would have given half his life, upon the people of the place, who flew to serve her. She had her tablets in her hand, with a list of what she wanted, and held up a dainty forefinger as she stood reading the items. As one thing after another was mentioned, Masters and his men darted off in search of it. There were fortunately enough to give each of them a separate errand, and the principal ranged his shining wares upon the counter before her, and bathed in her smiles, while all his satellites kept close at hand, listening with all their ears for another commission. Blessed Masters! happy shopmen! that one who looked so blank when Vincent stopped short at the sound of her voice and stared at him, had forgotten all about Vincent. She was there; and if a little impromptu litany would have pleased her ladyship, it is probable that it could have been got up on the spot after the best models, and that even the Nonconformist would have waived his objections to liturgical worship and led the responses. But Masters’s establishment offered practical homage—only the poor Dissenting minister, divided between eagerness and fear, stood silent, flushed with excitement, turning wistful looks upon her, waiting till perhaps she might turn round and see him, and letting fall out of his trembling fingers those unregarded editions of the Anglican lyre.
“And two copies of the Christian Year,” said Lady Western, suddenly. “Oh, thank you so much! but I know they are all on the side-table, and I shall go and look at them. Not the very smallest copy, Mr. Masters, and not that solemn one with the red edges; something pretty, with a little ornament and gilding: they are for two little protégées of mine. Oh, here is exactly what I want! another one like this, please. How very obliging all your people are,” said her ladyship, benignly, as the nearest man dashed off headlong to bring what she wanted—“but I think it is universal in Carlingford; and indeed the manners of our country people in general have improved very much of late. Don’t you think so? oh, there can’t be a question about it!”
“I beg your ladyship’s pardon, I am sure; but perhaps, my lady, it is not safe to judge the general question from your ladyship’s point of view,” said the polite bookseller, with a bow.
“Oh, pray don’t say so; I should be wretched if I thought you took more trouble for me than for other people,” said the young Dowager, with a sweetness which filled Vincent’s heart with jealous pangs. She was close by his side—so close that those
