She made a grimace, whereat he smiled, kissed her again, and answered very gently: "Will you permit me to put an appendix to your creed? 'Charity suffereth long, and is kind; is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.' My sister, I want you to help me. In some things I find myself as powerless without your co-operation as a pair of scissors with the rivet lost; I cannot cut through obstacles unless you are in your proper place." "For shame, you spiteful Pequod! to rivet your treacherous appeal with so sharply pointed an illustration! Scissors, indeed! I will be revenged by cutting all your work after a biased fashion. How would it suit you, reverend sir, to take the rivet out of my tongue, and repair your clerical scissors?" "How narrowly you escaped being a genius! That is precisely what I was about proposing to do, and now, dear, be sure you bid adieu to all bias. Elise, I received a letter two days since, which annoyed me beyond expression." "I inferred as much, from the vindictive energy with which you thrust it into the fire, and bored it with the end of the poker. Was it infected with small-pox or leprosy?" She opened her work basket, and began to crochet vigorously, keeping her eyes upon her needle. "Neither. I destroyed it simply and solely because it was the earnest request of the writer, that I should commit it to the flames." "_Par parenthese!_ from the beginning of time have not discord, mischief, trouble--been personified by females? Has there been a serious _imbroglio_ since the days of Troy without some vexatious Helen? Now don't scold me, if in this case I conjecture,--He? She? It?" "The letter was from a mother, pleading for her child, whom I several years ago promised to protect and to befriend. Subsequent events induced me to hope that she would never exact a fulfilment of the pledge, and I was unpleasantly surprised when the appeal reached me." "Let me understand fully the little that you wish to tell me. Do you mean that you were unprepared for the demand, because the mother had forfeited the conditions under which you gave the promise?" "You unduly intensify the interpretation. My promise was unconditional, but I certainly have never expected to be called upon to verify it." "What does it involve?" "The temporary guardianship of a child ten years old, whom I have never seen." "He? She? It?" "A girl, who will in all probability arrive before noon to-day." "Peyton!" The rose-coloured crochet web fell into her lap, and deep dissatisfaction spread its sombre leaden banners over her telltale face. "I regret it more keenly than you possibly can; and, Elise, if I could have seen the mother before it was too late, I should have declined this painful responsibility." "Too late? Is the woman dead?" "No, but she has sailed for Europe, and notifies me that she leaves the little girl under my protection." "What a heartless creature she must be to abandon her child."