"I assure you, we take the greatest interest in him at the cottage. He doesn't come to see us so often as Mr. Tufton would wish, but I daresay he has other things to do. The minister often says to me that he is a precious young man, is Mr. Vincent, and that a little good advice and attention to those that know better is all he wants to make him a shining light; and I am sure he will want no good advice Mr. Tufton can give him. So you may keep your mind easy--you may keep your mind quite easy. In any difficulty that could occur, I am sure the minister would act as if he were his own son." "You are very kind; but I hope no difficulty will occur," said Mrs. Vincent, with a little quiver in her lip. "I hope not, indeed; but there are so many people to please in a flock," said the late minister's wife, with a sigh. "We always got on very well, for Mr. Tufton is not one to take a deal of notice of any unpleasantness; but you know as well as I do that it takes a deal of attention to keep all matters straight. If you'll excuse me, it's a great pity Mr. Vincent has gone away to-day. Nothing would have made my husband leave his post just as he was intimated to begin a course of lectures. It's very excusable in Mr. Vincent, because he hasn't that experience that's necessary. I always say he's very excusable, being such a young man; and we have no doubt he'll get on very well if he does but take advice." "My son was very unwilling to go; but it was quite necessary. His sister," said Mrs. Vincent, clasping her hands tight under her shawl to balance the pang in her heart, "was with some friends--whom we heard something unpleasant about--and he went to bring her home. I expect them--to-morrow." The poor mother shut her lips close when she had said the words, to keep in the cry or sob that seemed bursting from them. Yes, God help her, she expected them; perhaps to-morrow--perhaps that same dreadful night; but even in the height of her anguish there occurred to Mrs. Vincent a forlorn prayer that they might not come back that Sunday. Rather another agonising night than that all the "Chapel folks" should be aware that their pastor was rushing wildly along distant railways on the day of rest. The fact that he was doing so added a pang to her own trouble. Total disarrangement, chaos, all the old habitudes of life gone to wreck, and only desperation and misery left, was the sensation produced by that interruption of all religious use and wont. It came upon her with an acute sting, to think that her poor young minister was travelling that Sunday; just as in Arthur's own experience at that same moment, the utter incoherence, chaos, and wretchedness into which his life had suddenly fallen, breathed upon him in the sound of the church-bells.