little more pleasure at finding me
prepared, to that extent, to take your side."

Molly gasped. His misunderstanding seemed to her too colossal to be
coped with. "It will be a public reproach to father," she managed to
say.

"I fear he may consider it so; and that is just my difficulty."

"But what good can it do to Hetty?"

"I was not, in the first instance, thinking of Hetty, but rather
using her case as an example which would be fresh in the minds of all
in the building. Nevertheless, since you put the question, I will
answer, that my argument should induce our mother and sisters, as
well as the parish, to judge her more leniently."

"The parish!" murmured Molly. "I was not thinking of _its_
judgment, And I doubt if Hetty does."

"You are right. The particular case--though unhappily we cannot help
dwelling on it--is merely an illustration. We, who have duties under
Christ to all souls in our care, must neglect no means of showing
them the light, though it involve mortifying our own private
feelings."

Molly, who had been plucking and twisting all this while the twig
between her fingers, suddenly cast it on the ground and hobbled away.

John gazed after her, picked up the book and set it down again.
The sermon came easily now.

Having thought it out and arranged the headings in his mind, he
returned to the house and wrote rapidly for two hours in his bedroom.
He then collected his manuscript, folded it neatly, scribbled a note,
and called down the passage to the servant, Jane, whom he heard
bustling about the parlour and laying dinner. To her he gave the
note and the sermon, to be carried to his father; picked up a crust
of bread from the table; and a minute later left the house for a long
walk.

Returning a little before supper-time, he found the manuscript on the
table by his bedside. No note accompanied it; there were none of the
usual pencil-marks and comments in the margin. The Rector had
restored it without a word.

For a moment he was minded to go and seek an interview; but decided
that, his resolution being fixed, an interview would but increase
pain to no purpose. He washed and went down to the parlour, walking
past the door of the study, in which his father supped alone.

Next morning being Saturday, Mr. Wesley walked over to Epworth, to a
room above a chandler's shop, where he and John lodged in turn as
they took Epworth duty on alternate Sundays. The Rectory there was
closed