"Seems to me they want a taste of the poker there," said Tabitha in her usual manner. "I'll buy a new one, so that I run not out of stock ere customers come. But I scarce think old Jeremy'll dare come a-nigh me; it'll be Sheriff himself, I reckon, when that piece of work's to be done. If they come to your house, just you bid Nell set the poker in the fire, and run over for me, and you keep 'em in talk while I come. Or a good kettle of boiling water 'd do as well--I'm no wise nice which it is--or if she'd a kettle of hot pitch handy, that's as good as anything." "I thank you for your counsel, Tabitha. I trust there may be no need." "And I the like: but you might as well have the pitch ready." CHAPTER TWENTY. UNSTABLE AS WATER. "And I hope, my dear son," said the Rev. Mr Bastian, with a face and voice as mellifluous as a honeycomb, "that all the members of your household are faithful, and well affected towards the Church our mother?" The Rev. Mr Bastian chose his words well. If he had said, "as faithful as yourself," Mr Roberts might have assented, with an interior conviction that his own faithfulness was not without its limits. He left no such loophole of escape. Mr Roberts could only reply that he entertained a similar hope. But whatever his hopes might be, his expectations on that score were not extensive. Mr Roberts had the nature of the ostrich, and imagined that if he shut his eyes to the thing he wished to avoid seeing, he thereby annihilated its existence. Deep down in his heart he held considerable doubts as concerned more than one member of his family; but the doubts were uncomfortable: so he put them to bed, drew the curtains, and told them to be good doubts and go to sleep. When children are treated in this manner, mothers and nurses know that sometimes they go to sleep. But sometimes they don't. And doubts are very much like children in that respect. Occasionally they consent to be smothered up and shelved aside; at other times they break out and become provokingly noisy. A good deal depends on the vitality of both the doubts and the children.