“There are strange stories about her, which it is as well to leave alone. They are getting out of date too. But she is not a fit woman to be regarded as the clergyman’s friend. There!” said Miss Jemima, as if she had wanted to relieve her bosom of a burden, and had done it. “I think, however, her religious opinions would correspond with your own, Mr Walton,” said Miss Hester. “Possibly,” I answered, with indifference; “I don’t care much about opinion.” “Her daughter would be a nice girl, I fancy, if she weren’t kept down by her mother. She looks scared, poor thing! And they say she’s not quite—the thing, you know,” said Miss Jemima. “What DO you mean, Miss Crowther?” She gently tapped her forehead with a forefinger. I laughed. I thought it was not worth my while to enter as the champion of Miss Oldcastle’s sanity. “They are, and have been, a strange family as far back as I can remember; and my mother used to say the same. I am glad she comes to our church now. You mustn’t let her set her cap at you, though, Mr Walton. It wouldn’t do at all. She’s pretty enough, too!” “Yes,” I returned, “she is rather pretty. But I don’t think she looks as if she had a cap to set at anybody.” I rose to go, for I did not relish any further pursuit of the conversation in the same direction. I rode home slowly, brooding on the lovely marvel, that out of such a rough ungracious stem as the Oldcastle family, should have sprung such a delicate, pale, winter-braved flower, as Ethelwyn. And I prayed that I might be honoured to rescue her from the ungenial soil and atmosphere to which the machinations of her mother threatened to confine her for the rest of a suffering life. CHAPTER XXVI. SATAN CAST OUT.