"Don't presume, sir, to preach to me. Really, I often wonder how Peyton can force himself to smile and parry the vinegar cruets that woman throws at him in the shape of observations upon the 'rapid decline of evangelical piety,' and the 'sadly backslidden nature' of the clergy." "Because he is the very best man in the world, and faithfully practises what he preaches--Christian charity. What is Mrs. Pru's latest grievance?" "That Peyton does not admit her to his confidence, and supply her with all the particulars of Regina's history and family, which he withholds even from you and me, and about which we should never dream of catechizing him. In a better cause, her bold effrontery would be sublime. Fortunately she was absent in Vermont for some months after the child came, and curiosity had subsided into indifference until she returned,--when lo! a geyser of righteous anxiety and suspicion boiled up in the congregation, and wellnigh scalded us. What do you suppose she blandly asked me one day, in the child's presence? 'Were not Mr. Hargrove's friends mistaken in believing he had never married?' Now I contend that the law of the land should indict for just such cruel and wicked innuendoes, because these social crimes that the statutes do not reach work almost as much mischief and misery as those offences against public peace which the laws declare penal. I confess Mrs. Potter is my _bete-noire_, and I feel as no doubt Paul did when he wrote to Timothy: 'Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his works.'" "Mother, what reply did you make to her? I can imagine you towering like Mrs. Siddons." "You may be sure I unmasked a battery. I looked straight into her little faded grey eyes, which straggle away from each other as if ashamed of their mutual ferret experiences,--for you know one looks out so, and one turns always up,--and I answered, that my brother had been exceedingly fortunate, as, notwithstanding the numerous matrimonial nets adroitly spread for him, he had escaped, like the Psalmist, 'as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers,' and fled for safety unto the mountain of celibacy. Bishop, if the new school of science lack the link that binds us to the ophidian type, I can furnish a thoroughly 'developed' specimen of an 'evolved' Melusina; for Mrs. Pru's ancestors must have been not very remotely, cobra-capellos. Such a chronic blister as she is keeps up more inflammation in a church than all the theology at Andover can cool. As for general society here in V----, she damages it more than all the three hundred foxes of Samson did the corn-fields, vineyards, and olives of the Philistines. What are you laughing at?"