‘Brother,’ said Grogan, with his eyes still fixed on his book, ‘would it not be wiser to leave off alluding to the time when you wallowed in earthly sin? It seems to me that you think of it too much. You have but one bride now, the holy Church, and you owe all your thoughts and affections and aspirations to her.’ ‘Do you mean that it is sin to think of, or allude to, my dear lost angel?’ demanded Frederick. ‘I think our superior would say that it is your bounden duty to put all the memories of the time when you lived with sinful companions, in a sinful condition, on one side.’ ‘Sinful companions!’ exclaimed Frederick, all the old man springing up in him at once. ‘Do you mean to tell me you are alluding to my late wife?’ ‘I was certainly alluding to the time of sin, which, by God’s grace, we trust you have put away from you for ever.’ ‘_Sinful!_’ repeated Frederick, with a glowing face; ‘why, she was as fresh and innocent as the dawn. She was worth all the priests that were ever ordained put together! Sinful! It is all very well for you and me to talk about our sins, acted and unacted, but never couple her memory in my presence again with such a word, Brother Grogan, or I will not answer for myself!’ And the newly-ordained priest rushed from the apartment to subdue his unholy temper in the privacy of his own dormitory. The conversation was duly reported to Father Henniker, who made a note of it, with the intention of shipping Brother Walcheren to some convenient station, a good distance from London, as soon as possible. He was a brand plucked from the burning, but the brand was smoking considerably still. The fire was not yet quenched, and required a good deal more cold water poured on it before it should be. So he sent Frederick much oftener amongst the poor. Here it was most palpably borne in upon him that he had mistaken his mission. He found no difficulty in talking to his poorer brethren, for he had a kind and generous heart, and he felt deeply for their privations and sufferings. But he found he was too apt to talk with them over their troubles, and advise them on the best way to get out of them, instead of praying with them and exhorting them to bless the Hand that had afflicted them. He detected himself more than once lamenting that he had no private purse from which he could have relieved their poverty, and telling them not to rise when he entered the room, and pay him so much well-meant attention when they were not fit to leave their seats. Once or twice he gave vent to an expression, or a wish, that shocked himself--pulled him up short, as it were, as he had been used to pull up his horses, in the olden days, upon their haunches, in order to check their too animated career. But, for a priest! Frederick’s constant inward cry now was, ‘Why did I ever suppose I was fit to become a priest?’