"Indeed, my dear," said Mrs. Pigeon, who was close by, "not to affront Mr. Vincent, as is deserving of our best respects, I've seen many and many's the minister I wouldn't have given up my seat to; and I don't misdoubt, sir, you've heard of such as well as we. There was Mr. Bailey at Parson's Green, now. He went and married a poor bit of a governess, as common a looking creature as you could see, that set herself up above the people, Mr. Vincent, and was too grand, sir, if you'll believe me, to visit the deacons' wives. Nobody cares less than me about them vain shows. What's visiting, if you know the vally of your time? Nothing but a laying up of judgment. But I wouldn't be put upon neither by a chit that got her bread out of me and my husband's hard earnins; and so I told my sister, Mrs. Tozer, as lives at Parson's Green." "Poor thing!" said the gentler Mrs. Tozer, "it's hard lines on a minister's wife to please the congregation. Mr. Vincent here, he'll have to take a lesson. That Mrs. Bailey was pretty-looking, I must allow----" "Sweetly pretty!" whispered Phoebe, clasping her plump pink hands. "Pretty-looking! I don't say anything against it," continued her mother; "but it's hard upon a minister when his wife won't take no pains to please his flock. To have people turn up their noses at you ain't pleasant----" "And them getting their livin' off you all the time," cried Mrs. Pigeon, clinching the milder speech. "But it seems to me," said poor Vincent, "that a minister can no more be said to get his living off you than any other man. He works hard enough generally for what little he has. And really, Mrs. Tozer, I'd rather not hear all these unfortunate particulars about one of my brethren----" "He ain't one of the brethren now," broke in the poulterer's wife. "He's been gone out o' Parson's Green this twelvemonths. Them stuck-up ways may do with the Church folks as can't help themselves, but they'll never do with us Dissenters. Not that we ain't as glad as can be to see you, Mr. Vincent, and I hope you'll favour my poor house another night like you're favouring Mrs. Tozer's. Mr. Tufton always said that was the beauty of Carlingford in our connection. Cheerful folks and no display. No display, you know--nothing but a hearty meetin', sorry to part, and happy to meet again. Them's our ways. And the better you know us, the better you'll like us, I'll be bound to say. We don't put it all on the surface, Mr. Vincent," continued Mrs. Pigeon, shaking out her skirts and expanding herself on her chair, "but it's all real and solid; what we say we mean--and we don't say no more than we mean--and them's the kind of folks to trust to wherever you go."