But it is not to be supposed that this curious incident passed over the head of the Rev. Edward Osborne without a certain effect. His heart began to long after Florry long before the smart of the wound she had given him was healed. And what she had said rankled in his mind even before that. Was there any truth in what she had said? Was it, perhaps, a better way, to win a young man who was his equal--_i.e._, whom no missionary effort was likely to be brought to bear upon, a man quite beyond the blandishments of district visitors, Bible readers, temperance lecturers, or even, in a general way, of the curate--to the paths of virtue, than to persuade an old lady to relinquish her poor little glass of beer by the sacrifice of his own very moderate glass of wine? The latter sacrifice had been mentioned in one or two papers, and held up as an example to other men. He had been applauded, but with reproof which was another kind of praise, by his own people and others. ‘Remember,’ his mother had written, ‘that Timothy was bidden by St. Paul to take a little wine for his stomach’s sake: and I am sure you are not such a giant of strength that you can afford to do without the little you take: though I quite appreciate the sacrifices you think it your duty to make, my dear boy.’ Sacrifice! It was no sacrifice. Osborne did not care in the least for the beer, which he took as a matter of habit, or the wine which was served to him at other people’s tables when he dined out. He rather liked, if truth must be told, to gently, tacitly snub his hosts by taking nothing. And it seemed to him, on the whole, an achievement which partook of the nature of the sublime to get old Mrs. Lloyd to give up her beer--not that it did her a great deal of harm, poor soul! But if she took none herself she would be strengthened to refuse it to her husband, and it would be an example to her sons and to the rest of the world--that small, dingy unenlightened world which it was so difficult to teach, which had so little to brighten or cheer it, and which pays so dearly for its indulgences in that sordid, dreadful way.