The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant

The dinner-party at the Rectory, to which Mr. Wentworth did not go, was much less interesting and agreeable than it might have been had he been present. As for the Rector and his wife, they could not but feel themselves in a somewhat strange position, having between them a secret unsuspected by the company. It was difficult to refrain from showing a certain flagging of interest in the question of the church's restoration, about which, to be sure, Mr. Finial was just as much concerned as he had been yesterday; though Mr. Morgan, and even Mrs. Morgan, had suffered a great and unexplainable diminution of enthusiasm. And then Mr. Leeson, who was quite unaware of the turn that things had taken, and who was much too obtuse to understand how the Rector could be anything but exasperated against the Perpetual Curate by the failure of the investigation, did all that he could to make himself disagreeable, which was saying a good deal.

When Mrs. Morgan came into the drawing-room, and found this obnoxious individual occupying the most comfortable easy-chair, and turning over at his ease the great book of ferns, nature-printed, which was the pet decoration of the table, her feelings may be conceived by any lady who has gone through a similar trial; for Mr. Leeson's hands were not of the irreproachable purity which becomes the fingers of a gentleman when he goes out to dinner. "I know some people who always wear gloves when they turn over a portfolio of prints," Mrs. Morgan said, coming to the Curate's side to protect her book if possible, "and these require quite as much care; " and she had to endure a discussion upon the subject, which was still more trying to her feelings, for Mr. Leeson pretended to know about ferns on the score of having a Wardian case in his lodgings (which belonged to his landlady), though in reality he could scarcely tell the commonest spleenwort from a lycopodium.