Matthew Diamond took no notice of the words. Perhaps he did not hear them. "I am not fit to go to evening parties," he continued. "The very wax-lights dazzle me. I feel like a bat or an owl." "Too wise for your company, that means!" "How can you say so? No: I assure you I was compared to an owl the other evening by a lady, and I felt the justice of the comparison." "By a lady! What lady?" Mr. Diamond smiled a little amused smile at the authoritative tone of the question. Minnie did not see it. She was leaning her elbow on a cushion, and had her face turned towards Mr. Diamond; but her eyes, which usually looked out, open and unabashed, were half veiled by their lids. "The lady was Mrs. Errington," answered the tutor, after a moment's pause. "She called you an owl? That eagle? Well, she has this aquiline quality; I believe she could stare the sun himself out of countenance!" "You were asking me to tell you----" said Mr. Diamond. "To tell me----? Oh, yes; about the Methodist preacher. That caricature is not like him, you say?" "Not at all. It is a vulgar conception of the man." "And the man is not vulgar? I am glad of that! Tell me about him." Matthew Diamond had heard the preacher more than once. The first time had been by chance on Whit Meadow. The other times were in the crowded, close Wesleyan chapel, into which he had penetrated at the cost of a good deal of personal inconvenience, so greatly had Powell's eloquence impressed him. "The man is like a flame of fire," he said. "It is wonderful! He must be like Garrick, according to the descriptions I have heard. And, then, this fellow is so handsome--wild and oriental-looking. I always long to clap a turban on his head, and a great flowing robe over his shoulders." Minnie listened eagerly, with parted lips, to all that Diamond would tell her of the preacher. "That is for his manner," she said, at length. "Now, as to the matter?" Mr. Diamond paused. "The man is an enthusiast, you know," he answered, gravely. "But as to his doctrine? Give me some idea of the kind of thing he says." "Not now." "Yes; now. This moment." "Excuse me; I cannot enter into the subject now." Minnie raises her brown eyes to his steel-grey ones, and then drops her own quickly. "Will you ever?" she asks, meekly. "Perhaps. I don't know." Miss Bodkin is not accustomed to be answered with such unceremonious curtness; but, perhaps on account of its novelty, Mr. Diamond's blunt disregard of her requests (in that house Minnie's requests have the weight of commands) does not ruffle her. She bears it with the most perfect sweetness, and proceeds to discourse of other things. "Don't you think it a pity," she says, "that Algernon Errington should have refused his cousin's offer?" "A great pity--for him." "Ah! you think Mr. Filthorpe of Bristol is not to be condoled with on the occasion?" Mr. Diamond's firmly closed lips remain immovable.