’I will give you no such assurance, sir, to hold you in vain hopes; but I wish you a happier fate than marriage with me might prove.’  With that she was gone from the room, like a shadow; and Mr. Poole and I were left foolishly staring at each other.  Presently he said hoarsely,—­

’Who is it that your sister loves, madam? for whom does she disdain me?  Sure,’ he went on, with growing heat, ’it cannot be your cousin—­he that is infected with the Quaker heresy! say it is not he, madam.’

Well, I was tempted to lie, and say it was not our cousin; for Andrew was nothing akin to us; but I resisted the tempter, and said I could say nothing, but that I was heartily sorry,—­’and I am sure, so is my sister,’ I said, ’that you should have fixed your affections so unluckily.’  Then I told him Andrew had no thoughts of marriage with Althea or any one; and I reminded him of the many rich and fair women who would be sure to look kindly on him; at which he smiled again, and presently went away in no unfriendly mood.  So I acquit him of meaning the harm which he afterwards did us, poor youth, with his prattling tongue.  He did not wait long for his promotion, the poor man whom he hoped to succeed dying indeed of the fever that had seized him; so we lost our curate.  But it seems he prated to his patron about the fair young lady he had hoped should share his preferment, lamenting her silliness in preferring a moonstruck Quaker youth; also he complained of Mrs. Golding for not discouraging such follies, and he even deplored Mr. Truelocke’s obstinate heresies as to church discipline.

I think even he had held his peace, if he had known into how greedy an ear he poured these tales.  This patron of his, one Sir Edward Fane, had much land and not a little power in our parish, though he resided in another neighbourhood; he was a bitter hater of all Nonconformists, and in especial of the Quakers; men said this was because of some encounter he had had with Fox himself, by whose sharp tongue and ready wit our gentleman was put to open shame, where he had hoped to make himself sport out of Quaker enthusiasm.  However that might be, it was commonly said this Sir Edward loved Quaker-baiting, as it was called, beyond all other of the cruel, inhuman sports, the bull-baitings and bear-baitings, in which too many men of condition now take pleasure; and it was not long before we found a powerful enemy was raised up against our harmless friends.

’Twas a wonder to me that any would lift a hand against them; Mr. Truelocke being so venerable and so peaceable a man, and Andrew of life so irreproachable.  Also, since the youth had cast in his lot with the Friends, he had shown a singular zeal in good works.  He sought out those who were in distress or necessity, and laboured to make their hard lot easy, not merely giving them alms, but comforting them as a loving brother might do; and such as had fallen into want through folly or sin he toiled hard to lift up again, and to put them into an honest way of living.  By this means some few were led to embrace his way of religion, it is true; and what wonder?  My wonder was that so many were vilely ungrateful to him, at which he never showed any vexation.  ’We are bidden,’ he said, ‘to do good to the unthankful and the evil,’ which seemed enough for him.