The manner in which Lily attained the possibility of making these studies was that by the minister’s invitation, seconded, but not with very much warmth, by Helen, she had come to the Manse on a visit of a few days. Whatever prejudice Mr. Blythe had against her--and she was sure he had a prejudice, though she could not imagine any cause for it--had disappeared under the pressure of his own sore need. He himself was helpless either to watch over or to protect his daughter, and in despair he had thought of the other girl, herself caught in a tangle of the bitter web of life, and full of secret knowledge of its difficulties, who, though she was so much younger, had learned to some degree the lesson which Helen was so slow to learn. “She’s but a girl, but I’ll warrant she could give Eelen a fine lesson what it is to lippen to a man,” the minister said to himself. He had no high view of human nature, for his part. To lippen to a man seemed to him, though he had been in that respect severely virtuous himself, the last thing that a woman should do. For his own part he lippened to, that is, trusted, nobody very much, and thought he was wise in so doing. To have Lily there, seeing every thing with those young eyes, no doubt throwing her weight on the other side, allowing it at least to be seen that a man was not so easily turned round a woman’s little finger as poor Helen thought, would be something gained in the absence of all other help. Mr. Blythe had a tacit conviction that Lily’s influence would be on the opposite side, though his chief reason for thinking so was one that was fictitious. This was how Lily came to be acquainted with all that was going on. They all appealed to her behind backs, each hoping he or she was alone in calling for her sympathy. “You will tell her better than I can; they all distrust an old man. They think the blood’s dry in his veins and he has forgotten he was once like the rest. And she will listen to him at the last. The thought that he’s going away, to fall deeper and deeper, and that strong delusion she has got that she can save him, will overcome her, and I’ll be left in the corner of the auld Manse sitting alone.” “Oh, no, Mr. Blythe, never think that; Helen will not leave you.” “I would not trust her, nor one of them,” he cried, and there in the dark, sitting almost unseen beside the fire, his voice came forth toneless, like that of a dead man. “I have never been thought to make much work about my bairns: one has gone and another has gone, and it has been said that the minister never minded. But there was once an auld man that said: ‘When I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.’” Lily put her hand upon the large, soft, limp hand of the old minister in quick sympathy. “She will never leave you,” she repeated: “you need fear nothing for that--she will never go away.”