hicker than water; damnation
doesn't hold good for her own. Love is stronger than hell-fire, and
works a miracle for Dick and Tom; only _she_ has to make up the balance
by giving other folks an extra dose of brimstone.

"Lastly, worldly wisdom, or what Miss Joliffe thinks wisdom, says, `No,
don't sell it; you should get more than fifty pounds for such a gem.'
So she is tossed about, and if she'd lived when there were monks in
Cullerne Church, she would have asked her father confessor, and he would
have taken down his `Summa Angelica,' and looked it out under
V.--`_Vendetur? utrum vendetur an non_?'--and set her mind at rest. You
didn't know I could chaffer Latin with the best of 'em, did you? Ah,
but I can, even with the Rector, for all the _nebulus_ and _nebulum_;
only I don't trot it out too often. I'll show you a copy of the `Summa'
when you come down to my room; but there aren't any confessors now, and
dear Protestant Parkyn couldn't read the `Summa' if he had it; so there
is no one to settle the case for her."

The little man had worked himself into a state of exaltation, and his
eyes twinkled as he spoke of his scholastic attainments. "Latin," he
said--"damn it! I can talk Latin against anyone--yes, with Beza
himself--and could tell you tales in it which would make you stop your
ears. Ah, well, more fool I--more fool I. `_Contentus esto, Paule mi,
lasciva, Paule, pagina_,'" he muttered to himself, and drummed nervously
with his fingers on the table.

Westray was apprehensive of these fits of excitement, and led the
conversation back to the old theme.

"It baffles me to understand how _anyone_ with eyes at all could think a
daub like this was valuable--that is strange enough; but how come these
London people to have made an offer for it? I know the firm quite well;
they are first-rate dealers."

"There are some people," said the organist, "who can't tell `Pop goes
the weasel' from the `Hallelujah Chorus,' and others are as bad with
pictures. I'm very much that way myself. No doubt all you say is
right, and this picture an eyesore to any respectable person, but I've
been used to it so long I've got to like it, and should be sorry to see
her sell it. And as for these London buyers, I suppose some other
ignoramus has taken a fancy to it, and wants to buy. You see, there
_have_ been chance visitors staying in this room a night or two between
whiles--perhaps even Americans, for all I said about them--a