"Mr. Tozer," said the widow, "I am just going to my sick child. Arthur and you will be able to talk of your business more freely when I am gone, and I hope you will be guided to give him good advice; what I am afraid of is, that he will throw it all up," continued Mrs. Vincent, leaning her hand upon the table, and bending forward confidential and solemn to the startled butterman, "as so many talented young men in our connection do nowadays. Young men are so difficult to deal with; they will not put up with things that we know must be put up with," said the minister's mother, shaking her head with a sigh. "That is how we are losing all our young preachers;--an accomplished young man has so many ways of getting on now. Oh, Mr. Tozer, I rely upon you to give my son good advice--if he is aggravated, it is my terror that he will throw it all up! Good-night. You have been our kind friend, and I have such trust in you!" Saying which the widow shook hands with him earnestly and went away, leaving the worthy deacon much shaken, and with a weight of responsibility upon him. Vincent met her at the door, assuring her that Susan had not called; but with a heroism which nobody suspected--trembling with anxiety, yet conscious of having struck a master-stroke--his mother glided away to the stillness of the sick-room, where she sat questioning her own wisdom all the evening after, and wondering whether, after all, at such a crisis, she had done right to come away. When the minister and the deacon were left alone together, instead of returning with zest to their interrupted discussion, neither of them said anything for some minutes. Once more Vincent took up his position on the hearthrug, and Tozer gazed ruefully at the empty cup which he still covered with his hand, full of troubled thoughts. The responsibility was almost too much for Tozer. He could scarcely realise to himself what terrors lay involved in that threatened danger, or what might happen if the minister threw it all up! He held his breath at the awful thought. The widow's Parthian arrow had gone straight to the butterman's heart.