“Indeed!  Let me tell you, young man, that your sister might have gone farther and fared worse.”

“Doubtless.  However, you will see now how impossible it is that you should remain in your present—­that you should continue here, in fact.”

“What do you mean?”

“You cannot,” said the clergyman, accustomed to be bold and stern with female sinners, “when you are sister-in-law to Miss Lind, live as you are now doing with her cousin.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would be a scandal.  I will say nothing at present of the sin of it:  you will have to account for that before a greater than I.”

“Just so, Doctor.  You dont mind the sin; but when it comes to a scandal——!”

“I did not say so.  I abhor the sin.  I have prayed earnestly for your awakening, and shall do so in spite of the unregenerate hardness of heart——­”

“Hallo, Doctor! draw it mild, if you please.  I am not one of your parishioners, you know.  Perhaps that is the reason your prayers for me have not met with much attention.  Let us stick to business:  you may talk shop as much as you please afterwards.  What do you want me to do?”

“To sever your connexion with Marmaduke at once.  Believe me, it will not prove so hard a step as it may seem.  You have but to ask for strength to do it, and you will find yourself strong.  It will profit you even more than poor Marmaduke.”

“Will it?  I dont see it, Doctor.  You think it will profit you:  thats plain enough.  But it wont profit me; it wont profit Bob; and it wont by any means profit the child.”

“Not immediately, perhaps, in a worldly sense——­”

“That is the sense I mean.  Drop all that other stuff:  I dont believe in you parsons:  you are about the worst lot going, as far as I can see.  Just tell me this, Doctor.  Your sister is a very nice girl, I have no doubt:  she would hardly have snapped up Ned if she wasn’t.  But why is she to have everything her own way?”

“I do not understand.”

“Well, listen.  Here is a young woman who has had every chance in life that hick could give her:  silk cradles, gold rattles, rank, wealth, schooling, travelling, swell acquaintances, and anything else she chose to ask for.  Even when she is fool enough to want to get married, her luck sticks to her, and she catches Ned, who is a man in a thousand—­though Lord forbid we should have many of his sort about!  Yet she’s not satisfied.  She wants me to give up my establishment just to keep her family in countenance.”

“She knows nothing of my visit, I assure you.”

“Even if she doesnt, it makes no odds as to the facts.  She can go her own way; and I will go mine.  I shant want to visit her; and I dont suppose she will visit me.  So she need trouble herself no more than if there was no such person as I in the world.”

“But you will find that it will be greatly to your advantage to leave this house.  It is not our intention that you shall suffer in a pecuniary point of view by doing so.  My father is rich——­”