"If this letter, as I trust it may, should be the means of softening your heart and so saving you from the ruin to which you are evidently hastening, it will not have been written in vain. I grudge no trouble in the duty that Providence has forced upon me of superintending the lives of any of my girls. You of course are subject to great temptations, but you must never forget your duty to me and to your mistress, particularly now that she (your unhappy mistress) is, as I hear with pain and consternation, the wife of a murderer. I trust that you will frequently read this letter when in doubt or temptation, and that it may be the means of preserving you is the earnest desire of "Your well-wisher, "CECILIA DODD." Mrs. Dodd posted her letter herself, and to make assurance doubly sure she registered it. When at lunch with her husband she broke to him the fact that she had written a letter "full of kind advice," as she phrased it, "to that flighty creature, Goody Wallis's daughter." "It's a troublesome and anxious duty, Mr. Dodd," she said, "to look after them all; but I try to shield all my girls from possible harm, and this one evidently meditated making a fool of herself." "You are always judicious, my dear," said the vicar. "This house and this parish would not be what they are, Mr. Dodd, were it not for me." "My love, I am fully sensible of my great good fortune." "John," said the vicar's wife as soon as they were alone, "one of us ought to write to that poor thing." "What poor thing, my dear?" "I mean the squire's unhappy daughter," she said. "Good heavens, Cecilia, for goodness sake, let her alone." "Leave her alone in the hour of her tribulation! Mr. Dodd, is that your advice as a clergyman, or is it your other entity, the man of the world, who speaks?" "Common prudence, my dear, suggests discretion." "And who shall listen to the whisper of prudence, when common duty speaks so loudly, Mr. Dodd?" "My dear, 'too many cooks spoil the broth,' is a homely saying." "A vulgar proverb, Mr. Dodd." "But full of wisdom, my dear, as are most proverbs. I think there is another culinary hint, too, that I remember, 'It is good not to introduce one's finger into one's neighbour's pie.'" "And is the murderer, then, to escape with impunity, Mr. Dodd? Is he to have at least no moral punishment; is the indignant finger of outraged society not to be pointed at him; is he with impunity to go out to slay whomsoever he will; and is there to be no Nemesis for such as he?" "Oh, as much as you like, my dear; but there's no reason why you should personally represent outraged society." "If I felt it a duty, Mr. Dodd, I should certainly represent outraged society, and Nemesis too, if I pleased." "Of course, my dear, of course, and doubtless _con amore_." "John!" said the indignant wife. But the vicar, having fired the last shot in his locker, had fled.