He did not omit to do so. "She has learnt
through you," and if his voice was still clerical, it was now
also sincere; "let it be your care that her knowledge is
profitable to her."
"Grazie tante!" said Cecil, who did not like parsons.
"Have you heard?" shouted Mrs. Honeychurch as she toiled up the
sloping garden. "Oh, Mr. Beebe, have you heard the news?"
Freddy, now full of geniality, whistled the wedding march. Youth
seldom criticizes the accomplished fact.
"Indeed I have!" he cried. He looked at Lucy. In her presence he
could not act the parson any longer--at all events not without
apology. "Mrs. Honeychurch, I'm going to do what I am always
supposed to do, but generally I'm too shy. I want to invoke every
kind of blessing on them, grave and gay, great and small.
I want them all their lives to be supremely good and supremely
happy as husband and wife, as father and mother. And now I want
my tea."
"You only asked for it just in time," the lady retorted. "How
dare you be serious at Windy Corner?"
He took his tone from her.
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