St. John's coming did not prove much help to her. It separated her from her mother, and gave her a more lonely feeling even than before. She was further off than ever from sympathy with them. She was smarting over the loss of what they were giving up. Their lives looked heavenward, hers, she did not disguise it from herself, looked, earthward, and earthward only. Their exalted faith had upon her simply the effect of depressing her own. She had a supreme estimate of common sense. She quite made it her rule of life just now. Whatever was opposed to it, she was ready to condemn; and, it must be admitted, there was a good deal in the lives of St. John and his mother that did not bear its stamp. Tried by its standard alone, in fact, it would have been difficult to find two people who were wasting their time more utterly. This Missy was not backward in saying to herself, and in suggesting to them, as far as she dared. That was not very far, for there was something about St. John that prevented people from taking liberties with him. His reality, sincerity, and simplicity of aim commanded the respect that his humility never claimed. No one felt it possible to remonstrate with him, however much inclined to blame. Dignity would have been his last aspiration, rather his abhorrence; but his self-less-ness answered pretty much the same purpose. The thing we are most apt to resent in others is personal claim to--anything. When a man claims nothing, and has given himself away, we can't quarrel with him, however poor a bargain we may consider he has made. Neither was it possible to pity St. John, or to feel contempt for him. The natural force of his character forbade that, and (those who sympathized with him would say) the grandeur of his purpose. So it was that his aunt fretted and scolded about him to his mother, and made her life a burden to her, but in his presence was quite silent about the matter of his vocation, and much more agreeable and well behaved than in anybody else's presence. And Mrs. Hazard Smatter was quite unable to ask him questions or to gain information from him. Very soon after his arrival, oppressed no doubt by the mediæval murkiness of the atmosphere, and the unfamiliarity of the situation, she quietly gathered up her notes and queries and prepared to wing her way to more speculative regions and a freer air. Even Goneril's tongue was tame when he was by, though she beat and brushed and shook his black habit as if it were the Pope, and harangued about the Inquisition to her fellow-servants by the hour together. This same black habit was a great snare to Missy. She always spoke of it to her mother as "his costume," as if it had come from Worth's; and it was a good many days before she could be resigned to his walking through the village. She even importuned her mother to beg him to give it up during his visit home.