the best) of a temper so choleric as Mr.
Wesley's is that by constant daily expenditure on trifles it fatigues
itself, and is apt to betray its possessor by an unexpected lassitude
when a really serious occasion calls. A temper thoroughly cruel
(which his was not) steadily increases its appetite: but a temper
less than cruel, or cruel only by accident, will run itself to a
standstill and either cry for a strong whip or yield to the
temptation to defer the crisis.

On this Mrs. Wesley was building when she broke to her husband the
news of Hetty's return. He lifted himself in his chair, clutching
its arms. His face was gray with spent passion.

"Where is she?"

"She has gone for a walk, alone," she answered. She had, in truth,
packed Hetty off and watched her across the yard before venturing to
her husband's door.

"So best." He dropped back in his chair with a sigh that was more
than half composed of relief. "So best, perhaps. I will speak to
her later."

He looked at his wife with hopeless inquiry. She bowed her head for
sign that it was indeed hopeless.

Now Molly had sought her mother early and spoken up. But Molly (who
intended nothing so little) had not only made herself felt, for the
first time in her life, as a person to be reckoned with, but had also
done the most fatally foolish thing in her life by winding up with:
"And we--you and father and all of us, but father especially--have
driven her to it! God knows to what you will drive her yet: for she
has taken an oath under heaven to marry the first man who offers, and
she is capable of it, if you will not be sensible."

--Which was just the last thing Hetty would have forbidden her to
tell, yet just the last thing Hetty would have told, had she been
pleading for Molly. For Hetty had long since gauged her mother and
knew that, while her instinct for her sons' interests was well-nigh
impeccable, on any question that concerned her daughters she would
blunder nine times out of ten.

So now Mrs. Wesley, meaning no harm and foreseeing none, answered her
husband gravely, "She has told me nothing. But she swears she will
marry the first man who offers."

The Rector shut his mouth firmly. "That decides it," he answered.
"Has she gone in search of the fool?"

But this was merely a cry of bitterness. As Mrs. Wesley stole from
the room, he opened a drawer in his table, pulled out some sheets of
manuscript, and gazed at them for a while without fix