Jenny could not tell whether her presence conduced to diligence or to chatter, but he minded her more than any one else, and always stuck close to her, insisting on her admiring all his proteges.  There was one with whom he was certainly doing a work, which, as Julius truly said, no one more clerical could have done so well—­ namely, the son of his landlady, a youth who held a small clerkship in an office at Willansborough, and who had fallen this year under the attraction of the Backsworth races, so as to get into serious difficulties with his master, and narrowly escape dismissal for the sake of his mother.

The exceeding good-nature and muscular Christian side of the lodger’s character was having a most happy effect on the lad.  He had set up a regular hero-worship, which Herbert encouraged by always calling for him when going to the choral practices, getting him into the choir, lending him books, and inviting him to read in his room in the evening.  How much they played with the dogs was not known; but at any rate, Harry Hornblower was out of mischief, and his mother was so grateful to Mr. Bowater, that she even went the length of preferring his sermons to those of both his seniors.

The discovery that most vexed Jenny was that Sirenwood had so much of his time.  He seemed to be asked to come to dinner whenever Sir Harry saw him, or a chair was left vacant at a party; and though his Rector was inexorable as to releasing him on casual notice from the parish avocations of three nights in the week, the effect was grumbling as savage as was possible from so good-humoured a being; and now and then a regular absence without leave, and a double growl at the consequent displeasure.  It was true that in ten minutes he was as hearty and friendly as ever to his colleagues, but that might be only a proof of his disregard of their reproofs, and their small effect.

Eleonora Vivian was not the attraction.  No; Herbert thought her a proud, silent, disagreeable girl, and could see no beauty in her; but he had a boy’s passion for the matured splendour of her sister’s beauty; and she was so kind to him!

What could Jenny mean by looking glum about it?  She was stunningly good, and all that.  She had done no end of good with clubs and mothers’ meetings at her married home; and it was no end of a pity she was not in Compton parish, instead of under poor wretched old Fuller, whom you could not stir—­no, not if you tied a firebrand to his tail.

CHAPTER XIII Withered Leaves and Fresh Buds

Lady Rosamond and Joanna Bowater could not fail to be good friends; Herbert was a great bond of union, and so was Mrs. Poynsett.  Rosamond found it hard to recover from the rejection of her scheme of the wheeled-chair, and begged Jenny to become its advocate; but Mrs. Poynsett listened with a smile of the unpromising kind—­“You too, Jenny?”

“Why not, dear Mrs. Poynsett?  How nice it would be to see you in your own corner again!”