WRECKED IN PORT.

    A SERIAL STORY BY THE AUTHOR OF "BLACK SHEEP"

                                      BOOK II.
        CHAPTER XII. POOR PAPA'S SUCCESSOR.

IT has been seen that Mr. Creswell's
marriage with Marian Ashurst was sufficiently
popular amongst the farmer class at
Helmingham, but it was by no means so warmly
received in other grades of society. Up at
the Park, for instance, the people could
scarcely restrain their indignation. Sir
Thomas Churchill had always been
accustomed to speak of "my neighbour, Mr.
Creswell," as a "highly respectable man,
sprung, as he himself does not scruple to
own, from the people," chirrupped the old Sir
Thomas, whose great- grandfather had been a
tanner in Brocksopp, "but eminently sound
in all his views, and a credit to the—ahem
—commercial classes of the community."
They sat together on the magistrates' bench,
met on committees of charitable
associations, and such like, and twice a year
solemnly had each other to dinner to meet
a certain number of other county people
on nights when there was a moon, or, at
least, when the calendar showed that there
ought to have been one. In the same spirit
old Lady Churchill, kindliest of silly old
women, had been in the habit of pitying
Marian Ashurst. "That charmin' girl, so
modest and quiet; none of your fly-away
nonsense about her, and clever, ain't she?
I don't know about these things myself,
but they tell me so, and to have to go into
lodgin's, and all that; father a clergyman
of the Church of England too!"
—staunch old lady, never moving about
without the Honourable Miss Grimstone's
Church- service, in two volumes, in her
trunk—"it really does seem too bad!"

But when the news of the forthcoming
marriage began to be buzzed about, and
penetrated to the Park, Sir Thomas did not
scruple to stigmatise his neighbour as an old
fool, while my lady had no better opinion
of Miss Ashurst than that she was a
"forward minx." What could have so
disturbed these exemplary people? Not, surely,
the low passions of envy and jealousy? Sir
Thomas Churchill, a notorious roué in his
day, who had married the plainest-headed
woman in the county for her money, all
the available capital of which he had spent,
could not possibly be envious of the fresh
young bride, whom his old acquaintance
was bringing home? And Lady Churchill,
to whom the village gossips talked
incessantly of the intended redecoration of
Woolgreaves, the equipages and horses
which were ordered, the establishment
which was about to be kept up, the position
in parliament which has to be fought
for, and, above all, the worship with which
the elderly bridegroom regarded the
juvenile bride-elect these rumours did not
influence her in the bitter depreciation with
which she henceforth spoke of the late
schoolmaster's daughter? Of course not!
The utterances of the baronet and his lady
were prompted by a deep regard to the
welfare of both parties, and a wholesome
regret that they had been prompted to take
a step which could not be for the future
happiness of either, of course.

Mr. Benthall, who, it will be recollected,
had succeeded the late Mr. Ashurst at the
Helmingham school, and was comparatively
new to the neighbourhood, took but little
interest in the matter, so far as Miss
Ashurst was concerned. He had a bowing
acquaintance with her, but he had neither
had the wish nor the opportunity of getting
on more familiar terms. Had she married