“There!  Lawrence, such a speech as that comes of your not going to church.  If you would just try to be a little better man, and go to hear Dr. Maundy preach, say once a year,” said Mrs. Dagon, sarcastically, “you would learn that it isn’t good works that are the necessary thing.”

“I hope, Aunt Dagon,” returned Lawrence, laughing—­“I do really hope that it’s good words, then, for your sake.  My dear aunt, you ought to be satisfied with showing that you don’t believe in good works, and let other people enjoy their own faith.  If charity be a sin, Miss Amy Waring and Miss Hope Wayne are dreadful sinners.  But then, Aunt Dagon, what a saint you must be!”

Gradually Mrs. Simcoe was persuaded that she ought to speak plainly to Lawrence Newt upon a subject which profoundly troubled her.  Having resolved to do it, she sat one morning waiting patiently for the door of the library—­in which Lawrence Newt was sitting with Hope Wayne, discussing the details of her household—­to open.  There was a placid air of resolution in her sad and anxious face, as if she were only awaiting the moment when she should disburden her heart of the weight it had so long secretly carried.  There was entire silence in the house.  The rich curtains, the soft carpet, the sumptuous furniture—­every object on which the eye fell, seemed made to steal the shock from noise; and the rattle of the street—­the jarring of carts—­the distant shriek of the belated milkman—­the long, wavering, melancholy cry of the chimney-sweep—­came hushed and indistinct into the parlor where the sad-eyed woman sat silently waiting.

At length the door opened and Lawrence Newt came out.  He was going toward the front door, when Mrs. Simcoe rose and went into the hall, and said, “Stop a moment!”

He turned, half smiled, but saw her face, and his own settled into its armor.

Mrs. Simcoe beckoned him toward the parlor; and as he went in she stepped to the library door and said, to avoid interruption,

“Hope, Mr. Newt and I are talking together in the parlor.”

Hope bowed, and made no reply.  Mrs. Simcoe entered the other room and closed the door.

“Mr. Newt,” she said, in a low voice, “you can not wonder that I am anxious.”

He looked at her, and did not answer.

“I know, perhaps, more than you know,” said she; “not, I am sure, more than you suspect.”

Lawrence Newt was a little troubled, but it was only evident in the quiet closing and unclosing of his hand.

They stood for a few moments without speaking.  Then she opened the miniature, and when she saw that he observed it she said, very slowly,

“Is it quite fair, Mr. Newt?”

“Mrs. Simcoe,” he replied, inquiringly.

His firm, low voice reassured her.

“Why do you come here so often?” asked she.

“To help Miss Hope.”

“Is it necessary that you should come?”