‘Oh, his success at Colesbridge has been somethin’ marvellous,’ he heard her say, with uplifted hands and eyes, ‘“some-thin” marvellous. The Lord has blessed him indeed! It doesn’t matter what it is, whether it’s meetin’s, or sermons, or parlor work, or just faithful dealin’s with souls one by one. Satan has no cleverer foe than Edward. He never shuts his eyes; as Edward says himself, it’s like trackin’ for game is huntin’ for souls. Why, the other day he was walkin’ out from Coventry to a service. It was the Sabbath, and he saw a man in a bit of grass by the road-side, mendin’ his cart. And he stopped did Edward, and gave him the Word _strong_. The man seemed puzzled like, and said he meant no harm. “No harm!” says Edward, “when you’re just doin’ the devil’s work every nail you put in, and hammerin’ away, mon, at your own damnation.” But here’s his letter.’ And while Rose turned away to a far window to hide an almost hysterical inclination to laugh, Mrs. Fleming opened her bag, took out a treasured paper, and read with the emphasis and the unction peculiar to a certain type of revivalism:-- ‘“Poor sinner! He was much put about. I left him, praying the Lord my shaft might rankle in him; ay, might fester and burn in him till he found no peace but in Jesus. He seemed very dark and destitute--no respect for the Word or its ministers. A bit farther I met a boy carrying a load of turnips. To him, too, I was faithful, and he went on, taking without knowing it, a precious leaflet with him in his bag. Glorious work! If Wesleyans will but go on claiming even the highways for God, sin will skulk yet.”’ A dead silence. Mrs. Fleming folded up the letter and put it back into her bag. ‘There’s your true minister,’ she said, with a large judicial utterance as she closed the snap. ‘Wherever he goes Edward must have souls!’ And she threw a swift searching look at the young clergyman in the window. ‘He must have very hard work with so much walking and preaching,’ said Catherine, gently. Somehow, as soon as she spoke, Elsmere saw the whole odd little scene with other eyes. ‘His work is just wearin’ him out,’ said the mother, fervently; ‘but a minister doesn’t think of that. Wherever he goes there are sinners saved. He stayed last week at a house near Nuneaton. At family prayer alone there were five saved. And at the prayer-meetin’s on the Sabbath such outpourin’s of the Spirit! Edward comes home, his wife tells me, just ready to drop. Are you acquainted, sir,’ she added, turning suddenly to Elsmere, and speaking in a certain tone of provocation, ‘with the labors of our Wesleyan ministers?’ ‘No,’ said Robert, with his pleasant smile, ‘not personally. But I have the greatest respect for them as a body of devoted men.’ The look of battle faded from the woman’s face. It was not an unpleasant face. He even saw strange reminiscences of Catherine in it at times.