Scenes of Clerical Life
Categories: Literature & Fiction
The first of the three stories, 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton,' is the slightest and simplest. Mr. Barton, a curate, with an income of eighty pounds a-year, with an angelic but sickly wife and a host of hungry little children, allows himself to be duped by the title of a 'Countess Czerlaski,' the handsome English widow of a Polish dancing-master. The countess quarrels with her brother, Mr. Bridmain, and throws herself on the hospitality of the Bartons. Her visit lasts beyond all…