“I sympathise with you with all my heart, dear child,” he said. “But the lesson which you have had is the most important in your education--the most important in the strengthening of your character, making you see, I doubt not, that the simple virtues are worthy of being held in far higher esteem than the mere graces of life. Your father would shake his head over a boat that was beautifully painted and gilded from stem to stern. Would he be satisfied, do you think, to go to sea in such a craft on the strength of its gold leaf? Would he not first satisfy himself that the painted timbers were made of stout wood? 'Tis not the paint or the gilding that makes a trustworthy boat, but the timber that is beneath. So it is not education nor graceful accomplishments that are most valuable to a man or woman, but integrity, steadfastness of purpose, content These are the virtues that tend to happiness. Above all, the most highly cultivated man or woman is he or she that has cultivated simplicity. I thank you for telling me your story in answer to my enquiry. And now that you have satisfied my curiosity on this point, it may be that you will go so far as to let me know why it was that you were filling the room in the Mill with shrieks last evening when I entered.” CHAPTER VI Nelly Polwhele gave a little jump when Mr. Wesley had spoken. It had come at last. She had done her best to steal away from the explanation which she feared she would have to make to him. But somehow she did not now dread facing it so greatly as she had done in the Mill. She had heard that the Reverend Mr. Wesley was severe, as well as austere. She had heard his Methodism mocked by the fashionable folk at Bath, story after story being told of his daring in rebuking the frivolities of the day. She had believed him to be an unsympathetic curmudgeon of a man, whose mission it was to banish every joy from life. But now that she had heard his voice, so full of gentleness--now that his eyes had rested upon her in kindliness and sympathy--now that she had heard him not disdain to spend an hour telling her and her friends that romance of the backwoods, thrilling them by his telling of it, her dread of being rebuked by him for her levity was certainly a good deal less than it had been. Still she looked uneasily away from him, and they had taken a good many steps in silence together before she made an attempt to answer him. And even then she did not look at him. “'Twas a piece of folly, I am afraid, sir,” she said in a low tone. “At least you may esteem it folly, though it did not fail to amuse the good people at the Mill,” she added in an impulse of vanity not to be resisted. “I had no doubt that it was a domestic game,” said he. “They were all roaring with laughter. Had you heard, as I did, from without, the loud laughter of the men and above it the wild, shrill shrieks, you would, I am sure, have been as amazed as I was.” She laughed now quite without restraint.