The Vicar made an exclamation of impatience. "Is it likely, do you think, that he has anything of that sort in his head?" he asked. "He's just amusing himself with a pretty girl, and thinks he can do what he likes with her, because she's beneath him in station. It makes my blood boil. And there's the girl lending herself to it--in all innocence, of course; I know that--and nobody to give her a word of warning." "Haven't you given her a word of warning?" asked Ethel. "I tried to do so. But she misunderstood me. I've said that it's all innocence on _her_ part. And it's difficult for a man to advise in these matters." "Couldn't Mrs. Mercer?" "My wife doesn't see quite eye to eye with me in this, unfortunately. She thinks I made a mistake in mentioning the matter to Mollie at all. Perhaps it would have been better if I'd left it to her. But she couldn't do anything now." "Couldn't you say anything to Mrs. Walter?" "I did that. She was there when I talked to Mollie. I'm sorry to say that she took offence. I ought really to have talked to them separately. They listened to what I had to say at first, and seemed quite to realise that a mistake had been made in Mollie going over to Grays in that way before Mrs. Pemberton had called on Mrs. Walter. It was even doubtful at that time whether she _would_ call on her, although she did so afterwards. But when I mentioned young Pemberton, they simply wouldn't listen to me. Mollie went out of the room with her head in the air, and Mrs. Walter took the line that I had no right to interfere with the girl at all in such matters as that. Why, those are the very matters that a man of the world, as I suppose one can be as well as being a Christian, ought to counsel a girl about, if he's on such terms with her as to stand for father or brother, as I have been with Mollie. Don't you think I'm right?" "Well, I don't know," said Rhoda. "If she'd just taken it naturally, and hadn't been thinking of any harm, it _would_ be likely to offend her to have it put to her in that way; especially if she was inclined to like him and didn't know it yet."