“We’re charmed to see you.  It is very good of you not to forget such uninteresting girls as we are.”

“You forget, Jemima,” interposed her sister, in a feminine bass, “that time is always on the wing.  I should have thought we were both decidedly middle-aged, though you are the elder by I will not say how many years.”

“All but ten years, Hester.  I remember rocking you in your cradle scores of times.  But somehow, Mr Walton, I can’t help feeling as if she were my elder sister.  She is so learned, you see; and I don’t read anything but the newspapers.”

“And your Bible, Jemima.  Do yourself justice.”

“That’s a matter of course, sister.  But this is not the way to entertain Mr Walton.”

“The gentlemen used to entertain the ladies when I was young, Jemima.  I do not know how it may have been when you were.”

“Much the same, I believe, sister.  But if you look at Mr Walton, I think you will see that he is pretty much entertained as it is.”

“I agree with Miss Hester,” I said.  “It is the duty of gentlemen to entertain ladies.  But it is so much the kinder of ladies when they surpass their duty, and condescend to entertain gentlemen.”

“What can surpass duty, Mr Walton?  I confess I do not agree with your doctrines upon that point.”

“I do not quite understand you, Miss Hester,” I returned.

“Why, Mr Walton—­I hope you will not think me rude, but it always seems to me—­and it has given me much pain, when I consider that your congregation is chiefly composed of the lower classes, who may be greatly injured by such a style of preaching.  I must say I think so, Mr Walton.  Only perhaps you are one of those who think a lady’s opinion on such matters is worth nothing.”

“On the contrary, I respect an opinion just as far as the lady or gentleman who holds it seems to me qualified to have formed it first.  But you have not yet told me what you think so objectionable in my preaching.”

“You always speak as if faith in Christ was something greater than duty.  Now I think duty the first thing.”

“I quite agree with you, Miss Crowther.  For how can I, or any clergyman, urge a man to that which is not his duty?  But tell me, is not faith in Christ a duty?  Where you have mistaken me is, that you think I speak of faith as higher than duty, when indeed I speak of faith as higher than any other duty.  It is the highest duty of man.  I do not say the duty he always sees clearest, or even sees at all.  But the fact is, that when that which is a duty becomes the highest delight of a man, the joy of his very being, he no more thinks or needs to think about it as a duty.  What would you think of the love of a son who, when an appeal was made to his affections, should say, ‘Oh yes, I love my mother dearly:  it is my duty, of course?’”

“That sounds very plausible, Mr Walton; but still I cannot help feeling that you preach faith and not works.  I do not say that you are not to preach faith, of course; but you know faith without works is dead.”