'But, sisters and brethren,' Mr. Bunton went on, 'did I yield to these popish temptations? Did I live, like one of their self-righteous so-called saints, on crabs, acorns, and grass? Did I retire to a cave? No, dear sisters and brethren. My motive for abstaining was bad; it was a suggestion of the Old Man--' 'Qui donc est-il, ce vieillard bien pensant?' whispered the Prince. 'The devil, sir,' answered Graden, who knew the doctrine of the Scotch ministers. 'My motive for not living on crabs in a cave was bad, I confess, but it was over-ruled for the best. Dear friends, I kept myself far from these temptations, because, indeed, I was afraid of ghosts that haunt caves and such places.' 'Il ne mangeait pas les ecrevisses, parce qu'il avait peur des revenants! O c'est trop!' said the Prince, in a voice choked with emotion, while more advanced disciples cried 'Glory!' and 'Hallelujah!' 'But next,' the preacher went on, much gratified and encouraged by these demonstrations, 'I was happily brought acquainted with that precious sister, that incomparable disciple of Mr. Wesley, whom we call the Elect Lady. Then I awoke to light, and saw that it was laid upon me to preach, continually and unceasingly, making in every town confession of my offences. That dear lady, friends, promises for this once (she is as modest as she is generous and good) to tell us the moving story of her own early dangers, while she was a dweller in the tents of--of Shem, I think.' The congregation cheered and stamped with their feet, all but a few who were rolling on the floor in fits and foaming at the mouth. Mr. Bunton sat down very warm, and applied himself to the mug of water. The Elect Lady rose up to her full height, and tossed back her veil over her shoulders. 'Ah, nous sommes trompes,' said the Prince. 'C'est une femme de quarante ans, bien sonnes!' But Wogan, between the shoulders of the congregation, stared from his dim corner as he had never stared at mortal woman before. The delicate features were thickened, alas, the lips had fallen in, the gold threads had been unwoven out of the dark brown hair. There were two dabs of red on a powdered face, where in time past the natural roses and lilies had bloomed; but the voice and the little Andalusian foot that beat the time with the Elect Lady's periods were the voice and the foot of the once incomparable Smilinda! Nay, when she turned and looked at the converted land-surveyor beside her, Mr. Wogan knew in her gaze the ghost of the glance that had bewitched Scrope, and Kelly, and Colonel Montague, and Lord Sidney Beauclerk, and who knows how many other gallants? In that odd place Wogan felt a black fit of the spleen. A woman's loss of beauty,--Wogan can never think of it unmoved. What tragedy that we men endure or enact is like this?