But her ladyship spoke, and she spoke very well. The congregation, all of them that were not in fits or in laughing hysterics, listened as if to an angel. Heavens! what a story she told of her youth! What dangers encountered! What plots prepared against her virtue, ay, by splendid soldiers, beautiful young lords, and even clergymen; above all, by one monster whom she had discovered to be, not only a monster, but a traitor to the King, and an agent of the Pretender. She was a young thing then, married to an old lord, all unprotected, on every side beset by flattery. The congregation groaned and swayed at the picture of man's depravity, but Wogan, his spleen quite forgotten, was chuckling with delight. Yet, all unawakened as she was, said this penitent, an unknown influence had ever shielded her. She remembered how one of these evil ones, the clergyman, after kneeling vainly at her feet, had cried, 'Sure, some invisible power protects your ladyship.' Here the groans gave place to cries of praise, arms were lifted, the simple, good people wept. Wogan listened with a less devotional air, bending forward on his bench, and rubbing his hands for joy. In truth it had just come upon him that it was his duty to stand up when the Elect Lady sat down, and bear his witness to the truth of her narrative. 'Not to her be the triumph,' she went on, 'all unawakened as she then was, and remained, till she heard Mr. Wesley preach,' and thereafter went through the world with Brother Bunton, converting land-surveyors, colliers, and others. Wogan does not care to remember or quote any more of this lady's pieties. They had a kind of warmth and ease of familiarity which, in sacred things, are not to his liking. However, when she ceased, Mr. Wogan stood up, a tall figure of a French officer with an empty sleeve in his dim corner. 'Good people,' he said; 'in my heedless youth I had the honour to be of the acquaintance of this lady who has just spoken to you.' The Elect Lady glanced at Wogan; she gave a strange, short cry, and the black veil swept over her face again. 'I was,' Wogan went on, 'the eye-witness of these trials to which her Ladyship's virtue was exposed by the wicked ones of whose company I was a careless partaker. I have heard that wicked minister say that some invisible power protected her Ladyship. If any testimony to the truth of her ladyship's moving tale were needed I could bear that evidence, as could my friend the Rev. Mr. Kelly, now in France with despatches, and also General Montague, at present serving with Field-Marshal Wade, in the neighbourhood of Newcastle.' Wogan sat down. 'That was providential indeed,' said the cobbler; and all the congregation bawled 'Miracle.' But the Elect Lady sat still, her face in her hands, like a Niobe in black bombazine.