ere is every reason why you should. You are able to maintain my
daughter?"

"I pay my way, sir; though hard enough it is for an honest tradesman
in these times." Insensibly he dropped into the tone of one pressing
for payment. The Rector regarded him with brows drawn down and the
angry light half-veiled, but awake in his eyes now and growing.
Mr. Wright, looking up, read danger and misread it as threatening
_him_. "Indeed, sir," he broke out, courageously enough, "I feel for
you: I do, indeed. It seems strange enough to _me_ to be standing
here and asking you for such a thing. But when a man feels as I do
t'ards Miss Hetty he don't know himself: he'll go and do that for
which he'd call another man a fool. Kick me to doors if you want to:
I can't help it. All I tell you is, I worship her from the top of
her pretty head to her shoe-strings; and if she were wife of mine she
should neither wash nor scrub, cook nor mend; but a room I would make
for her, and chairs and cushions she should have to sit on, and books
to read, and pens and paper to write down her pretty thoughts; and
not a word of the past, but me looking up to her and proud all the
days of my life, and studying to make her comfortable, like the lady
she is!"

During this remarkable speech Mr. Wesley sat without a smile. At the
end of it, he lifted a small handbell from the writing-table and rang
it twice.

Mr. Wright made sure that this was a signal for his dismissal.
He mopped his face. "Well, it can't be helped. I've been a fool, no
doubt: but you've had it straight from me, as between man and man."

He picked up his hat and was turning to go, when the door opened and
Mrs. Wesley appeared.

"My dear," said the Rector, "the name of this honest man is Wright--
Mr. William Wright, a plumber, of Lincoln. To my surprise he has
just done me the honour of offering to marry Mehetabel."

Mrs. Wesley turned from the bowing Mr. Wright and fastened on her
husband a look incredulous but scared.

"I need scarcely say he is aware of--of the event which makes his
offer an extremely generous one."

The signal in the Rector's eyes was blazing now. His wife rested her
hand on a chair-back to gain strength against she knew not what.
Mr. Wright smiled, vaguely apologetic; and the smile made him look
exceedingly foolish; but she saw that the man was in earnest.

"I think," pursued Mr. Wesley, aware of her terror, aware of the pain
he took from his own words