hat the baptism
was postponed.

She passed through the door into the vestry. During the exciting
moments of her recusancy there had been a perceptible flutter among the
sensitive members of the congregation; nervous Dissenters seeming to be
at one with nervous Episcopalians in this at least, that they heartily
disliked a scene during service. Calm was restored to their minds by the
minister starting a rather long hymn in minims and semibreves, amid the
singing of which he ascended the pulpit. His face had a severe and
even denunciatory look as he gave out his text, and Somerset began to
understand that this meant mischief to the young person who had caused
the hitch.

'In the third chapter of Revelation and the fifteenth and following
verses, you will find these words:--

'"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou
wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold
nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.... Thou sayest, I am rich,
and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that
thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."'

The sermon straightway began, and it was soon apparent that the
commentary was to be no less forcible than the text. It was also
apparent that the words were, virtually, not directed forward in
the line in which they were uttered, but through the chink of the
vestry-door, that had stood slightly ajar since the exit of the young
lady. The listeners appeared to feel this no less than Somerset did, for
their eyes, one and all, became fixed upon that vestry door as if they
would almost push it open by the force of their gazing. The preacher's
heart was full and bitter; no book or note was wanted by him; never
was spontaneity more absolute than here. It was no timid reproof of
the ornamental kind, but a direct denunciation, all the more vigorous
perhaps from the limitation of mind and language under which the speaker
laboured. Yet, fool that he had been made by the candidate, there was
nothing acrid in his attack. Genuine flashes of rhetorical fire
were occasionally struck by that plain and simple man, who knew what
straightforward conduct was, and who did not know the illimitable
caprice of a woman's mind.

At this moment there was not in the whole chapel a person whose
imagination was not centred on what was invisibly taking place within
the vestry. The thunder of the minister's eloquence echoed, of cours