"The best of us are likely to give in--yes! Well, I've got another appointment--at Alison's." "Alison's? What have you got to do with Alison these days?" "Come now, does your position interfere with your friendships? What have you to do with Mrs. Jepps?" "It was my wife. I never see the old witch." "I've no wife--so I have to face the devil on my own account." From my talk with Cartmell I was the more anxious for the success of my other appointment. That might help to free Jenny from the danger of being made so angry as to do what she hated to do, and what faithful old Cartmell could not stomach. If anything could drive her to it, it would be a slight, a harshness, a rudeness, toward Margaret. How she had flared up at Alison's objections! If Margaret were spurned, to Jenny's mind Octon also was again spurned. Then the temper would still have to be reckoned with--the temper under disappointment as well as wrath; for Jenny built upon this interview. Margaret was punctual at Alison's--she came spanking up in the carriage with the big gray horses the moment after I had reached the door--and we went together into the sparely furnished room where he lived and did his work. He was no bookman--his walls looked bare; his very chairs meant labor rather than rest. And he was no student--"My convictions from God, my orders from the Bishop, my time to the ministry," he had once said to me--adding then, with the touch of humor that so often softened his rigorous zeal--"I sometimes think one's Bishop is the final trial of faith, Austin." Our Bishop was a moderate man, highly diplomatic, given to quoting St. Paul as an example of adaptability. "All things to all men if by chance--" So far as the chance lay there, his lordship never missed it. But to see Alison with Margaret obliterated any criticism left possible by his affectionate nature and (may I add?) his ingenuous consciousness of possessing absolute and exclusive truth. He had so tender a reverence for her youth and receptivity--and with it such a high gentlemanly purpose that she should not think that he held her either too young for courtesy or too receptive for intellectual respect. He had great manners, born of a loving heart. Why, after all, should he worry about reading books? Guesses about appearances--that's books--from novels up to philosophy. But how pleasant is the guessing! She became to him at once a delighted disciple. Here was no such discrepancy of heart and head as divided him from Jenny--no appeal to another standard--no obstinate defense against his attacks behind the ramparts of her nature. Margaret's nature was his to mold--small blame to him if the thought crossed his mind that it would be to the good if she were set in a high place--if such a light burned under no bushel of obscurity!