'Come, Althea, come, Lucy, and speak to my best friend, who was a good friend to your mother also; it is the parson of this parish, Mr. Truelocke, and this his son Harry, newly come home from the seas;' so we came up and greeted the old gentleman reverently, and his son as kindly as we might; and Mrs. Golding put Mr. Truelocke into a great armed chair, and sat looking at him with vast contentment. He looked at her and smiled a wonderfully sweet smile. 'Had you brought these young maids home a month or two later, Mrs. Golding,' says he, 'you could not truly tell them I was the parson of this parish or of any other. But we'll let that pass;' and turning to us he began to speak to us kindly and fatherly, pitying our afflictions, and bidding us praise and thank God, who had raised up so good a friend to help us. I was glad to hear his words, though they brought the tears into mine eyes; but our aunt sat impatiently, and presently broke in on his discourse, saying,-- 'What mean you, sir, by telling me in a month or two you will be no parson of this parish? is there anything new?' 'Nothing, but the falling of a full-ripe fruit, that began to blossom two years agone,' says the old gentleman cheerfully; 'it hath been long a-ripening, 'twas time it should fall.' 'Give me none of your parables, good friend; I want plain speech,' cries our aunt; and Master Harry said bluntly,-- 'Madam, it's all along of the new Act for Uniformity which was printed and set forth this last May. You were too full at that time of your apprehensions for these young ladies to be curious to read that mischievous Act; but, since it touches my father nearly, he mastered its meaning with great pains, and has thought of little else for many days; and the upshot of all this is, that next Bartholomew-tide he will go forth, like Abraham of old, to wander he knows not whither;' at which words Mrs. Golding sighed deeply, and sat as one amazed. 'It is even so, my kind friend,' said Mr. Truelocke, smiling. 'Well, I can't tell what you may think here of the matter,' went on Master Harry; 'but in my conscience, I think my father's conscience something too tender.' 'You speak like a man of this world, Harry,' says Andrew, who had come in, and was looking at the young man with frowning brows and angry eyes. 'How else would you have me speak?' says Harry. 'I am but a plain sailor, and I pretend not to know any world but this work-a-day world that I have to get my bread in. I leave the new worlds in the moon, or beyond it, to poets and madmen; and I'll tell you my mind of the matter, if you will hear me. He stopped, and Mrs. Golding said, 'Speak your mind, Master Harry, it's ever an honest mind, and full of goodwill.'