“Mair's the pity, and then you wouldna be running bull-neck on your death before your time.” “None of us can do that, auntie, for heaven is over all.” “High words off an empty stomach, my man, so you can just keep them to cool your parridge. But oh, dear--oh, dear! You'll forget your puir auld Jane Callender, anyway.” “Never, auntie!” “Tut! don't tell me!” “Never!” “It's the last I'm to see of you, laddie. I'm knowing that fine--and me that fond of you too, and looking on you as my ain son.” “Come, auntie, come; you mustn't take it so seriously.” “And to think a bit thing like that can make all this botherment!” “Nay, it's my own doing--absolutely mine.” “Aye, aye, man's the head, but woman turns it.” They dined together and then got into the carriage for Soho. John talked continually, with an impetuous rush of enthusiasm; but the old lady sat in gloomy silence, broken only by a sigh. At the corner of Downing Street he got out to call on the Prime Minister, and sent the carriage on to the clergy-house. A newsboy going down Whitehall was calling an evening paper. John bought a copy, and the first thing his eye fell upon was the mention of his own name: “The announcement in another column that Father Storm of Soho intends to take up the work which the heroic Father Damien has just laid down will be received by the public with mingled joy and regret--joy at the splendid heroism which prompts so noble a resolve, regret at the loss which the Church in London will sustain by the removal of a clergyman of so much courage, devotion, independence, and self-sacrifice.... That the son of a peer and heir to an earldom should voluntarily take up a life of poverty in Soho, one of the most crowded, criminal, and neglected corners of Christendom, was a fact of so much significance----” John Storm crushed the paper in his hand and threw it into the street; but a few minutes afterward he saw another copy of it in the hands of the Prime Minister as he came to the door of the Cabinet room to greet him. The old man's face looked soft, and his voice had a faint tremor. “I'm afraid you are bringing me bad news, John.” John laughed noisily. “Do I look like it, uncle? Bad news, indeed! No, but the best news in the world.” “What is it, my boy?” “I am about to be married. You've often told me I ought to be, and now I'm going to act on your advice.” The bleak old face was smiling. “Then the rumour I see in the papers isn't true, after all?” “Oh, yes, it's true enough, and my wife is to go with me.” “But have you considered that carefully? Isn't it a terrible demand to make of any woman? Women are more religious than men, but they are more material also. Under the heat of religious impulse a woman is capable of sacrifices--great sacrifices--but when it has cooled----”