Chapter 14.12 - Shirley

The clergy were sacred beings in Miss Ainley's eyes. No matter what might be the insignificance of the individual, his station made him holy. The very curates, who in their trivial arrogance were hardly worthy to tie her pattern strings or carry her cotton umbrella or check woolen shawl, she, in her pure, sincere enthusiasm, looked upon as sucking saints. No matter how clearly their little vices and enormous absurdities were pointed out to her, she could not see them. She was blind to ecclesiastical defects. The white surplus covered a multitude of sins. Shirley, knowing this harmless infatuation on the part of her recently chosen Prime Minister, stipulated expressly that the curates were to have no voice in the disposal of the money, that their meddling fingers were not to be inserted into the pie. The rectors, of course, must be paramount, and they might be trusted. They had some experience, some sagacity. And Mr. Hall, at least, had sympathy and loving-kindness for his fellow-men. But as for the youth under them, they must be set aside, kept down, and taught that subordination and silence best became their years and capacity. It was with some horror Miss Ainley heard this language. Caroline, however, interposing with a mild word or two in praise of Mr. Sweeting, calmed her again. Sweeting was indeed her own favourite. She endeavoured to respect Mrs. Malone and Dunn, but the slices of sponge-cake and glasses of cowslip or primrose wine she had at different times administered to Sweeting, when he came to see her in her little cottage, were ever offered with sentiments of truly motherly regard. The same innocuous collation she had once presented to Malone, but that personage evinced such open scorn of the offering, she had never ventured to renew it.