"Dear, dear! You don't say so! Of course the preacher is furious? Those kind of Ranters are very violent sometimes. I remember, when I was quite a girl, a man on a tub, who used to scream and use the most dreadful language. So much so, that poor papa forbade our going within earshot of him." "No; David Powell is not furious. I am told that he astonished some of the more bigoted of his flock, by reminding them that they ought to have charity enough to believe that a man may worship acceptably in any Christian community." "Did he really? Now, that positively was very proper of the man, and very right. Quite right, indeed." "So that I think we may assume that he is on the road to Heaven, Methodist though he be." "Oh, Minnie!" "Does that shock you, Miss Chubb?" "Well, my dear, yes; it does, rather. My family has been connected with the Church for generations. And--one doesn't like to hear Dr. Bodkin's daughter talk of being sure that a Dissenter is on the road to Heaven." Minnie lay back on her sofa, and looked at Miss Chubb complacently bending over her knitting. Gradually the look of amused scorn on Minnie's face softened into melancholy thoughtfulness. She wondered how David Powell would have met such an observation as Miss Chubb's. He had to deal with even narrower and more ignorant minds than hers. What method did he take to touch them? To Minnie it all seemed very hopeless, so long as men and women continued to be such as those she saw around her. And yet this preacher did move them very powerfully. If she could but meet him face to face, and have speech with him! There was one person to whom she was strongly impelled to detail her perplexities, and to express her fluctuating feelings and opinions on more momentous subjects than she had ever yet spoken with him upon. But there were a hundred little counter impulses pulling against this strong one, and holding it in check. Miss Chubb's voice broke in upon her meditations by uttering loudly the name that was in Minnie's mind. "My dear, I think it's quite a case with Mr. Diamond." Minnie's heart gave a great bound; and the deep, burning blush which was so rare and meant so much with her, covered her face from brow to chin. Miss Chubb's eyes were fixed on her knitting. When, after a short pause, she raised them to seek some response, Minnie was quite pale again. She met Miss Chubb's gaze with bright, steady eyes, a thought more wide open than usual. "How do you mean 'a case'?" she asked carelessly. "I mean, my dear, a case of falling, or having fallen, in love." The white lids drooped a little over the beautiful eyes, and a look, partly of pleasure, partly of fluttered surprise, swept over Minnie's face, as the breeze sweeps over a corn-field, touching it with shifting lights and shadows. "What nonsense!" she said, in a little uncertain voice, unlike her usual clear tones.