Mrs. Errington, without entering into that question, considered herself peculiarly aggrieved by the circumstance that Powell had come to lodge in the same house with her. "I am doomed, it seems, to be a victim to that man!" said she to Minnie Bodkin. "At Maxfield's house I was frequently disturbed by his hymns and his preachments; and even now, it appears, I am not to escape from him. He absorbs Mrs. Thimbleby's attention to a ludicrous extent. If you will credit the fact, my dear Minnie, only yesterday morning my egg was sent up at breakfast greatly over-boiled; and when I remonstrated with Mrs. Thimbleby on this piece of negligence, what excuse do you suppose she made? She answered that she was very sorry, but she had been getting ready a 'little snack'--that was her expression--for Mr. Powell after his early preaching, and it had slipped her memory that my breakfast-egg was still in the saucepan! I have no doubt the man stuffs and crams himself at her cost. All these dissenting preachers do, my dear." Whereunto Minnie answered gravely, that it was a great comfort to Church people to reflect that moderation in eating and drinking was entirely confined to the orthodox clergy. Mr. Diamond, again, took a different and more sympathising view of the poor preacher. But even he was very far from entertaining the same exalted admiration for Powell's character as was felt by Minnie. Matthew Diamond had an Englishman's ingrained antipathy to the uncontrolled display of feeling, from which Powell's Welsh blood by no means revolted. Diamond could never divest himself of a lurking notion that no man would publicly exhibit deep emotion if he could help it; and consequently he looked on all such exhibitions as rather pitiable manifestations of infirmity, or else as mere clap-trap and play-acting. Of the latter it was impossible to suspect Powell. Diamond had the touchstone of truthfulness within himself; and it sufficed to convince him that the preacher, however wild and mistaken, was sincere. "Yes," he said to Miss Bodkin, "there can be no doubt that the man's soul is as clear from guile as an infant's. But it is a pity he cannot suppress the outbursts of enthusiasm which exhaust him so much." "He does not wish to suppress them," answered Minnie. "He looks on them as a means specially vouchsafed to him for moving others, and--to use his own words--saving souls. Some sober, sensible persons remind me, when they speak of David Powell, of a covey of barn-door fowls, complacently staring up at a lark, and exclaiming, 'Poor creature, how unpleasant it must be for it to have to soar and gyrate in that giddy fashion; and making that shrill noise all the time, too! How it must envy us our constitutions!'" "I suppose I am one of the barn-door fowls, Miss Bodkin?"