"I spoke hotly, perhaps, sir. I ought not to have done so, but I was moved. Forgive me if I was wrong--let us part friends." Still no reply. "I will leave you now, as you wish it, sir. Drop me a line, and send it by one of the school-children, and I will come over and see you." The Rector might have been made of stone as he stood there motionless, till, with a heavy sigh, his visitor slowly left the room, and trudged across the fields to his gloomy little room in the old, half-buried rectory. PART ONE, CHAPTER TEN. ANOTHER TROUBLE FOR DISCUSSION. That night, just at dark, Joe Biggins walked on tiptoe along the little gravel walk, bearing something beneath his arm; and, as he tapped at the door, the wheelwright rose and led his sobbing wife to an inner room, where he held her tenderly, with her head resting upon his breast, as they stood listening to the opening door, the creaking stairs, and the smothered, heavy step in the bedroom overhead. Then, after a few minutes, there was the sound of descending footsteps, the creaking of the cottage stairs, a whisper or two in the little entry, the closing door, the step upon the gravel, and all was still. The sad hours glided by in the little darkened house, till Saturday arrived. There had been gossip enough in the place, and endless messages, fraught with good feeling, had come to the stricken couple from far and near; but there had been no sign from the rectory, and it was the general belief that the wheelwright would take the infant to the graveyard at the Wesleyan Chapel at Gatton. For somehow the whole affair had been well spread, and, as Humphrey Bone, the schoolmaster, said with a hearty chuckle of delight, it was a glorious chance for the Rector's enemies to blaspheme, and there and then, in the presence of several witnesses, he took advantage of the glorious opportunity. Both Julia and Cynthia had called and sympathised very warmly with their old maid, to have the door opened to them by Tom Morrison himself, who frowned when he saw who were the visitors; but as Julia laid her hand upon his arm, and he saw Cynthia with her eyes overflowing, he drew back, and somehow the wheelwright's heart was softened, and grew softer still as he saw his young wife sobbing in Julia Mallow's arms. Both Julia and her sister tried to mediate, but were sternly forbidden to interfere, and though they tried again through the interposition of Mrs Mallow, she shook her head. "No, my dears," said the patient invalid, looking at her daughters with her great wistful eyes, "it is of no use; papa will never give way upon a matter of the Church. He says--" Mrs Mallow paused, for she felt that she ought not to repeat her husband's words, which were to the effect that he had been neglectful for years, and that now nothing should turn him from the path of duty.