or, in times of personal sorrow, of dwelling conversationally on his
griefs, would never have occurred to him. The easy familiarity with
which Manske spoke of the Deity offended his taste. These things, these
sacred and awful mysteries, were the secrets between the soul and its
God. No man, thought Lohm, should dare to touch with profane questioning
the veil shrouding his neighbour's inner life. Manske, however, knew no
fear and no compunction. He would ask the most tremendous questions
between two mouthfuls of pudding, backing himself up with the whole
authority of the Lutheran Church, besides the Scriptures; and if the
poor people and the partly educated liked it, and were edified, and
enjoyed stirring up and talking over their religious emotions almost as
much as they did the latest village scandal, Lohm, who had no taste
either for scandal or emotions, kept the parson at arm's length.

He thought a good deal about what Manske had told him during the
afternoon. She had gone to the parson, then, for help, because there was
no one else to go to. Poor little thing. He could imagine the sort of
speeches Manske had made her, and the sort of advertisement he would
have told her to write. Poor little thing. Well, what he could do was to
put her in the way of getting a companion as quickly as possible, and a
very sensible, capable woman it ought to be. No wonder she was not to be
past hard work. Work there would certainly be, with twelve women in the
house undergoing the process of being made happy. Lohm could not help
smiling at the plan. He thought of Miss Estcourt courageously trying to
demolish the crust of dejection that had formed in the course of years
over the hearts of her patients, and he trusted that she would not
exhaust her own youth and joyousness in the effort. Perhaps she would
succeed. He did not remember having heard of any scheme quite analogous,
and possibly she would override all obstacles in triumph, and the
patients who entered her home with the burden of their past misery heavy
upon them, would develop in the sunshine of her presence into twelve
riotously jovial ladies. But would not she herself suffer? Would not her
own strength and hopefulness be sapped up by those she benefited? He
could not think that it would be to the advantage of the world at large
to substitute twelve, nay fifty, nay any number of jolly old ladies, for
one girl with such sweet and joyous eyes.

This, of course, was the purel