"Gentlemen, we have with us here many improvident and foolish persons who have mostly by their own misconduct reduced themselves to our unhappy condition. It needs not that in this place, which is not a pulpit, I should speak of those who have gambled away their property"--Sir Miles shook his head--"or drank it away"--Sir Miles stared straight at the ceiling--"or have missed their chances, or been forgotten by Fortune"--Mr. Stallabras groaned. "Of these things I will not speak. But it is a thing notorious to all of us that the Liberties are not the chosen home of virtue. Here temperance, sobriety, morality, gentle words, courteous bearing, truth, honour, kindness of thought, and charity--which seeketh not her own--are rarely illustrated and discourteously entreated. Wherefore, I say, that for two ladies to have steadfastly resisted all the temptations of this place, and to have exhibited, so that all might copy, the exemplar of a perfect Christian life during thirty years, is a fact which calls for the gratitude as well as the astonishment of the wondering Rules." "He _ought_ to have been a----" began Solomon Stallabras, wiping a sympathetic tear, but caught the Doctor's frowning eye and stopped; "an--an Archbishop," he added presently, with a little hesitation. "Sir," said the Doctor, "you are right. I ought to have been an archbishop. Many an archbishop's Latin verses have been poor indeed compared with mine. But to proceed. Madam, I would fain not be tedious." "Oh, sir," said Mrs. Esther, whose brain seemed confused with this strange exordium. "After thirty years or thereabouts of most undeserved captivity and forced retirement from the polite world--which they were born to adorn--these ladies found themselves by the will of Providence forced to separate. One of them winged her glad flight to heaven, the other was permitted to remain awhile below. It was then that I began to investigate the conditions of their imprisonment. Madam," he turned suddenly to Mrs. Esther, so that she started in her chair and trembled violently, "think of what you would most wish: name no trifling matter; it is not a gift of a guinea or two, the bettering of a meal, the purchase of a blanket, the helping of a poor family; no boon or benefit of a day or two. Let your imagination rove, set her free, think boldly, aim high, think of the best and most desirable thing of all." She tried to speak, her lips parted; she half rose, catching at my hand: but her words were refused utterance; her cheek grew so pale and white that I thought she would have swooned and seized her in my arms, being so much stronger and bigger. Then I ventured to speak, being moved myself to a flood of tears.