Carling. He set it down to an excess of
sensitiveness and delicacy which charmed him. He was
himself--though he never would confess it--a shy, nervous man by
nature. Ostentation of any sort was something which he shrank
from instinctively, even in the simplest affairs of daily life;
and his future wife's proposal to avoid all the usual ceremony
and publicity of a wedding was therefore more than agreeable to
him--it was a positive relief.
The courtship was kept secret at Torquay, and the marriage was
celebrated privately at Penliddy. It found its way into the local
newspapers as a matter of course, but it was not, as usual in
such cases, also advertised in the _Times_. Both husband and wife
were equally happy in the enjoyment of their new life, and
equally unsocial in taking no measures whatever to publish it to
others.
Such was the story of the rector's marriage. Socially, Mr.
Carling's position was but little affected either way by the
change in his life. As a bachelor, his circle of friends had been
a small one, and when he married he made no attempt to enlarge
it. He had never been popular with the inhabitants of his parish
generally. Essentially a weak man, he was, like other weak men,
only capable of asserting himself positively in serious matters
by running into extremes.
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