loved the lowly.  Her step was lighter, her voice more flexible, her laugh much merrier and more frequent, for now her heart was gay.  Her husband praised God when he heard her laugh; the laugh suggested the praise, for itself rang like praises.  She would pull up her ponies in the middle of the street, and at word or sign, the carriage would be full of children.  Whoever could might scramble in till it was full.  At the least rudeness, the offender would be ordered to the pavement, and would always obey, generally weeping.  She would drive two or three times up and down the street with her load, then turn it out, and take another, and another, until as many as she judged fit had had a taste of the pleasure.  This she had learned from seeing a costermonger fill his cart with children, and push behind, while the donkey in front pulled them along the street, to the praise and glory of God.

She was overbearing in one thing, and that was submission.  Once, when I was in her husband’s study, she made a remark on something he had said or written, I forget what, for which her conscience of love immediately smote her.  She threw herself on the floor, crept under the writing table at which he sat, and clasped his knees.

“I beg your pardon, husband,” she said sorrowfully.

“Helen,” he cried, laughing rather oddly, “you will make a consummate idiot of me before you have done.”

“Forgive me,” she pleaded.

“I can’t forgive you.  How can I forgive where there is positively nothing to be forgiven?”

“I don’t care what you say; I know better; you must forgive me.”

“Nonsense!”

“Forgive me.”

“Do get up.  Don’t be silly.”

“Forgive me.  I will lie here till you do.”

“But your remark was perfectly true.”

“It makes no difference.  I ought not to have said it like that.  Forgive me, or I will cry.”

I will tell no more of it.  Perhaps it is silly of me to tell any, but it moved me strangely.

I have said enough to show there was a contrast between the two ladies.  As to what passed in the way of talk, that, from pure incapacity, I dare not attempt to report.  I did hear them talk once, and they laughed too, but not one salient point could I lay hold of by which afterward to recall their conversation.  Do I dislike Mrs. Bevis?  Not in the smallest degree.  I could read a book I loved in her presence.  That would be impossible to me in the presence of Mrs. Ramshorn.

Mrs. Wingfold had developed a great faculty for liking people.  It was quite a fresh shoot of her nature, for she had before been rather of a repellent disposition.  I wish there were more, and amongst them some of the best of people, similarly changed.  Surely the latter would soon be, if once they had a glimpse of how much the coming of the kingdom is retarded by defect of courtesy.  The people I mean are slow to like, and until they come to like,