r oppressed by her conscience, and evidently still thinking him
the curate: 'I cannot but feel that Mr. Woodwell's heart has been
unnecessarily wounded.'

'The minister's?'

'Yes. He is single-mindedness itself. He gives away nearly all he has
to the poor. He works among the sick, carrying them necessaries with his
own hands. He teaches the ignorant men and lads of the village when
he ought to be resting at home, till he is absolutely prostrate from
exhaustion, and then he sits up at night writing encouraging letters
to those poor people who formerly belonged to his congregation in the
village, and have now gone away. He always offends ladies, because he
can't help speaking the truth as he believes it; but he hasn't offended
me!'

Her feelings had risen towards the end, so that she finished quite
warmly, and turned aside.

'I was not in the least aware that he was such a man,' murmured
Somerset, looking wistfully after the minister.... 'Whatever you may
have done, I fear that I have grievously wounded a worthy man's heart
from an idle wish to engage in a useless, unbecoming, dull, last-century
argument.'

'Not dull,' she murmured, 'for it interested me.'

Somerset accepted her correction willingly. 'It was ill-considered of
me, however,' he said; 'and in his distress he has forgotten his Bible.'
He went and picked up the worn volume from where it lay on the grass.

'You can easily win him to forgive you, by just following, and returning
the book to him,' she observed.

'I will,' said the young man impulsively. And, bowing to her, he
hastened along the river brink after the minister. He at length saw his
friend before him, leaning over the gate which led from the private
path into a lane, his cheek resting on the palm of his hand with every
outward sign of abstraction. He was not conscious of Somerset's presence
till the latter touched him on the shoulder.

Never was a reconciliation effected more readily. When Somerset said
that, fearing his motives might be misconstrued, he had followed to
assure the minister of his goodwill and esteem, Mr. Woodwell held out
his hand, and proved his friendliness in return by preparing to have
the controversy on their religious differences over again from the
beginning, with exhaustive detail. Somerset evaded this with alacrity,
and once having won his companion to other subjects he found that the
austere man had a smile as pleasant as an infant's on the rare moments
when he