I CALLED at a good many houses in the village. I am thankful to say I have rarely found myself unwelcome, to the best sort of people at least. Most of us have known each other so long, and have such a long stretch of memory to go back upon together, that we belong to each other in a way. As for the scapegraces, they are a little frightened of me, I confess. They say, Miss Milly comes a-worriting, when I speak my mind to them. I can’t say the men reverence me, nor the women bless my influence, as I read they do with some ladies in some of Miss Kate Roberts’ books. But we are good friends on the whole. When the men have been drinking, and spent all their wages, or saucy, and put out of their place, then they try their best to deceive me, to be sure; but I know all their little contrivances pretty well by this time. They don’t mean much harm after all, only to persuade one that things are not so bad as they look.

After I had given a glance into the shop where I saw Mr. Luigi’s fat servant,—I only saw him once, but yet the place seemed full of that fat, funny, good-humoured, outlandish figure, with his bows and smiles, and loquacious foreign speech, that poor Mrs. Taylor commiserated so deeply—I stepped across to the rectory to make a call there. The poor young shopkeeper, who had a night-class for the men and grown lads, and was really an intelligent, well-meaning young man, had been confiding his troubles to me. They did not care a bit about learning; they did not even want to read. When they did read it was the most foolish books! Poor young Taylor’s heart was breaking over their stupidity. And then, to keep a shop, even a bookshop, hurt his “feelings,” poor lad. He had been brought up for a teacher’s profession, he said—he even had some experience in “tuition.” He had thought he could make a home for his mother and his little sister; and now Dr. Appleby was grumbling that he did not succeed, and thought it his own fault! Poor young fellow! to be sure, he should have gone stolidly through with it, and had no business to have any “feelings.”{162} But, you see, people will be foolish in every condition of life.

So I stepped across the road to call on Miss Kate, thinking of him all the way; thinking of him and that unknown young Italian, only once seen, whom the apparition of the fat servant in Taylor’s shop somehow connected with the young shopkeeper. How Mr. Luigi had forced himself into all my thoughts! and yet the only one fact I knew about him was, that he was looking for an apocryphal lady whom nobody ever heard of! Should I have thought no more about him but for Sarah’s mysterious agitation? I really cannot tell. Again and again his voice came back to me, independent of Sarah. Whose voice was it? Where had he got that hereditary tone?

Miss Kate was in, for a great wonder. She was wonderfully active in the parish. She was far more the rector, except in the pulpit, than good Dr. Roberts was. I am sure he was very fortunate to have such an active sister. I don’t think anything ever happened, within a space of three or four miles round the village, that Miss Kate was not at the bottom of it. Of course I expected to hear everything over again that Dr. Roberts had told us about Mr. Luigi. But, so long as Sarah was not present, I could take that quite easily. Indeed, I wished so much to know more of this stranger, somehow, that I really felt I should be glad to hear all that they had to say.

“I was indeed very much interested in the young man,” said Miss Kate, starting the subject almost immediately, as I expected. “I think great efforts should be made to lay hold of every one that comes out of his poor benighted country. I said so to the Doctor; but the Doctor’s views, you know, are very charitable. Mr. Hubert, however, quite agreed with me. I asked him to come back when he came to this part of the country again, and said I should be very glad to have some serious conversation with him. He stared, but he was very polite; only, poor young man, his thoughts are all upon this lady. I have no doubt he thought it was that business I wanted to talk to him about.”

“But I suppose, like Dr. Roberts, you can throw no light upon her; who she is, or where she is?” said I. “It is strange he should seem so positive she was here, and yet nobody remembers her. For my own part, if I had once heard it, I am sure I should never have forgotten that name. I have a wonderful memory for names.”

“Very strange no doubt,” said Miss Kate, with a little cough. “And then, that man of his. Alas, what an imprisoned{163} soul! To think he should be in the very midst of light and faithful preaching, and yet not be able to derive any benefit from it! I never regretted more deeply not having kept up my own Italian studies. And poor Mr. Hubert—but you would hear all about that; the Doctor does so delight in an amusing story. They could not understand each other in the very least, you know. Ah, what a matter it would be to get hold of that poor Domenico—that’s his name. Why, he might be quite an apostle among his countrymen, when he got back. But nothing can be done till he can be taught English, or some agency can be found out in Italian. I can’t tell you how much interest I feel in these poor darkened creatures. And to think they should be in the midst of the light, and no possibility of bringing them under its influence! I don’t speak of the master, of course, who knows ............