tting by it to scare
the beasts from your three sons! I cannot like that David.
Saul, now, was a man and a king, every inch of him, even in his dark
hours. David had no breeding--a pretty, florid man, with his curls
and pink cheeks; one moment dancing and singing, and the next weeping
on his bed. Some women like that kind of man: but his complexion
wears off. In the end he grows nasty, and from the first he is
disgustingly underbred."

"Hetty!"

"I cannot help it, mother. Had I been Michal, and Saul's daughter,
and had seen that man capering before the ark, I should have scorned
him as she did."

And Hetty stood up and strode away into the darkness.

In the darkness, almost an hour later, Molly found her by the edge of
a dyke. She had a handkerchief twisted between her fingers, and kept
wringing it as she paced to and fro. Why had she given way to
passion? Why, on this night of all nights, had she saddened her
mother? And why by an outburst against David, of all people in the
world?

She could not tell. When the temper is overcharged it overflows,
nine times out of ten, into a channel absurdly irrelevant.

What on earth had David to do with it? She halted and laughed while
Molly entreated her. In the dyke the black water crawled at her
feet, and upon it a star shone.

"Star Mary--_stella maris_, if only you will shine steadily and guide
me! Kiss me now, and hear that I am sorry."

But it was Molly who, later that night, put out both arms in the bed
where they slept together: and with a wail which lasted until Hetty
enfolded her and held her close.

"I was dreaming," she muttered. "I dreamt--of that man."

CHAPTER VI.

For six months of the year, sometimes for longer, the thatched
parsonage at Wroote rose out of a world of waters, forlorn as a
cornstack in a flood, and the Rector of Epworth journeyed between his
two parishes by boat, often in soaked breeches, and sometimes with a
napkin tied over his hat and wig. But in this harvest weather, while
the sun shone and the meadow-breezes overcame the odours of damp
walls and woodwork, of the pig-sty at the back and of rotting weed
beyond, the Wesley household lived cheerfully enough, albeit pinched
for room; more cheerfully than at Epworth, where the more spacious
rectory, rebuilt by Mr. Wesley at a cost of 400 pounds, remained
half-furnished after fourteen years--a perpetual reminder of debt.

Here at any rate, although Wroote tithe br