ould refrain from threatening her with divine
wrath; and as you know nothing about her, I regard such threats, coming
from you, as impertinent, unmanly, inhuman, and blasphemous.' Mr.
Caldigate had commenced this conversation, though vehemently, still in
so argumentative a manner, and in his allusions to the lady's romantic
and superstitious ideas had seemed to yield so much, that the terrible
vigour of his last words struck the poor clergyman almost to the
ground. One epithet came out after another, very clearly spoken, with a
pause between each of them; and the speaker, as he uttered them, looked
his victim close in the face. Then he walked slowly away, leaving Mr.
Smirkie fixed to the ground. What had he done? He had simply made a
gentle allusion to the next world, as, surely, it was his duty to do.
Whether this old pagan did or did not believe in a next world himself,
he must at any rate be aware that it is the peculiar business of a
clergyman to make such references. As to 'impertinent' and 'unmanly,'
he would let them go by. He was, he conceived, bound by his calling to
be what people called impertinent, and manliness had nothing to do with
him. But 'inhuman' and blasphemous!' Why had he come all the way over
from Plum-cum-Pippins, at considerable personal expense, except in
furtherance of that highest humanity which concerns itself with
eternity? And as for blasphemy, it might, he thought, as well be said
that he was blasphemous whenever he read the Bible aloud to his flock!
His first idea was to write an exhaustive letter on the subject to
Mr. Caldigate, in which he would invite that gentleman to recall the
offensive words. But as he drove his gig into the parsonage yard at
Plum-cum-Pippins, he made up his mind that this, too, was among the
things which a Christian minister should bear with patience.

But the dropping water always does hollow the stone,--hollow it a little
though the impression may not be visible to the naked eye. Even when
rising in his wrath, Mr. Caldigate had crushed the clergyman by the
violence of his language,--having been excited to anger chiefly by the
thick-headedness of the man in not having understood the rebuke intended
to be conveyed by his earlier and gentler words,--even when leaving the
man, with a full conviction that the man was crushed, the old Squire was
aware that he, the stone, was being gradually hollowed. Hester was now
very dear to him. From the first she had suited his i