the room, like a shadow; and Mr. Poole and I were left
foolishly staring at each other. Presently he said hoarsely,--

'Who is it that your sister loves, madam? for whom does she disdain me?
Sure,' he went on, with growing heat, 'it cannot be your cousin--he that
is infected with the Quaker heresy! say it is not he, madam.'

Well, I was tempted to lie, and say it was not our cousin; for Andrew
was nothing akin to us; but I resisted the tempter, and said I could say
nothing, but that I was heartily sorry,--'and I am sure, so is my
sister,' I said, 'that you should have fixed your affections so
unluckily.' Then I told him Andrew had no thoughts of marriage with
Althea or any one; and I reminded him of the many rich and fair women
who would be sure to look kindly on him; at which he smiled again, and
presently went away in no unfriendly mood. So I acquit him of meaning
the harm which he afterwards did us, poor youth, with his prattling
tongue. He did not wait long for his promotion, the poor man whom he
hoped to succeed dying indeed of the fever that had seized him; so we
lost our curate. But it seems he prated to his patron about the fair
young lady he had hoped should share his preferment, lamenting her
silliness in preferring a moonstruck Quaker youth; also he complained of
Mrs. Golding for not discouraging such follies, and he even deplored Mr.
Truelocke's obstinate heresies as to church discipline.

I think even he had held his peace, if he had known into how greedy an
ear he poured these tales. This patron of his, one Sir Edward Fane, had
much land and not a little power in our parish, though he resided in
another neighbourhood; he was a bitter hater of all Nonconformists, and
in especial of the Quakers; men said this was because of some encounter
he had had with Fox himself, by whose sharp tongue and ready wit our
gentleman was put to open shame, where he had hoped to make himself
sport out of Quaker enthusiasm. However that might be, it was commonly
said this Sir Edward loved Quaker-baiting, as it was called, beyond all
other of the cruel, inhuman sports, the bull-baitings and bear-baitings,
in which too many men of condition now take pleasure; and it was not
long before we found a powerful enemy was raised up against our harmless
friends.

'Twas a wonder to me that any would lift a hand against them; Mr.
Truelocke being so venerable and so peaceable a man, and Andrew of life
so irreproachable. Also, since the y