"So it's Mr. Fuller's church you've been going to? I'm so glad! How often has he service, then?" "Every day, miss. Think o' that. It don't take long, though, as I tell you. But why should it? If there is any good in talking at all, it comes more of being the right thing than the muchness of it, as my old father used to say--for he was in the business afore me, miss, though I saw a great deal more o' the world than ever he did afore I took to it myself--says he, 'It strikes me, Jacob, there's more for your money in some o' those eighteen mos, if you could only read 'em, than in some o' them elephants. I ha' been a watchin',' says he, 'the sort o' man that buys the one and that buys the tother. When a little man with a shabby coat brings in off the stall one o' them sixpenny books in Latin, that looks so barbarious to me, and pops it pleased like into the tail of his coat--as if he meant to have it out again the minute he was out of the shop--then I thinks there's something in that little book--and something in that little man,' says father, miss. And so I stick up for the sermons and the little prayers, miss. I've been thinking about it since; and I think Mr. Fuller's right about the short prayers. They're much more after the manner of the Lord's Prayer anyhow. I never heard of anybody getting tired before _that_ was over. As you are fond of church, miss, you'd better drop into Mr. Fuller's to-morrow mornin'. If you go once, you'll go again." Long after, Lucy told Mr. Fuller what the bookseller had said, and it made him think yet again whether our long prayers--_services_, as we call them, forsooth--are not all a mistake, and closely allied to the worship of the Pagans, who think they shall be heard for their much speaking. She went out by the side-door into the archway. As she opened it, a figure sped past her, fleet and silent. She started back. Why should it remind her of Thomas? She had scarcely seen more in the darkness than a deeper darkness in motion, for she came straight from the light. She found the door not as she left it. "Has Thomas been here, grannie?" she asked, with an alarm she could not account for. "No, indeed. He has favored us with little of his company this many a day," answered grannie, speaking out of the feelings which had gradually grown from the seeds sown by Stopper. "The sooner you're off with him, my dear, the better, for you!" she continued. "He's no good, I doubt." With a terrible sinking at the heart, Lucy heard her grandmother's words. But she would fight Thomas's battles to the last. "If ever that man dares to say a word against Thomas in my hearing," she said, "I'll--I'll--I'll leave the room."