a few hours
at the parsonage pending his return.

Now these visits of Sukey's were a trial to her no less than to her
mother and sisters. She knew that they detested her husband, and
(what was worse) she had enough of the Wesley in her to perceive why
and how: nevertheless, being a Wesley, she kept a steady face on her
pain. Stung at times to echo Dick's sentiments and opinions, as it
were in self-defence, she tried to soften them down and present them
in a form at least tolerable to her family. It was heroic, but
uncomfortable; and they set aside the best parlour for it.

Sukey would have preferred the kitchen. In person she was short and
plump, and her face expressed a desire to be cheerful. She had
little or none of that grace by which her sisters walked in the
commonest cotton frocks as queens. In childhood she had been noted
for her carelessness in attire, and now obediently flaunted her
husband's taste in bonnets.

Her headdress to-day had a dreadful coquettishness. Dick had found
it at Lincoln and called on the company to admire. It consisted of
three large mock water-lilies on a little mat of muslin, and was
perched on her piled hair so high aloft that their gaze, as they
scanned it, seemed to pass far over her head. She longed to tear it
down, cast it on the floor, and be the Sukey they knew.

The plate of cake and biscuits on the table gave the parlour a last
funereal touch. Dick was boisterously talkative. The others
scarcely spoke. At length Hetty, who had been struggling to swallow
a biscuit, and well-nigh choking over it, rose abruptly, kissed her
mother, and went straight to her father's room.

He sat at his writing-table, busy as usual with his commentary upon
the Book of Job. At another table by the window Johnny Whitelamb
bent over a map, with his back to the light. He glanced up as she
entered: she could not well read his eyes for the shadow, and perhaps
for some dimness in her own: but he rose, gathered his papers
together, and slipped from the room.

"Papa, Dick Ellison is in the parlour."

"So my ears inform me."

"He wishes to see you."

"Then you may take him my compliments and assure him that he will
not."

"But, papa, the gig is at the door. I have come to say good-bye."

"Ah, in that case I will step out to the door and see you off; but I
will not be button-holed by Dick Ellison." He rose and stood eyeing
her, pinching his chin between thumb and forefinger. "You