For this literary leaven in the Allen’s household, as we have said, Zachariah was answerable. Mrs. Allen loved him as she loved her father, and he wrote to her long letters, through which travelled into Cowfold Square all the thought of the Revolution. He never went to Cowfold himself, nor could he ever be persuaded to let little Pauline go. She had been frequently invited, but he always declined the invitation courteously on the ground that he could not spare her. The fame of her beauty and abilities had, however, reached Cowfold, and so it came to pass that when Mr. Thomas Broad, junior, being duly instructed in the doctrine of the Comforter, entered the Dissenting College in London, he determined that at the first opportunity he would call and see her. He had been privately warned both by his father and mother that he was on no account to visit this particular friend of the Allens, firstly, because Zachariah was reputed to be, “inclined towards infidelity,” and secondly, because, summing up the whole argument, he was not “considered respectable.” “Of course, my dear, you know his history,” quoth Mrs. Broad, “and it would very much interfere with your usefulness if you were to be intimate with him.” Little Pauline had by this time grown to be a woman, or very nearly one. She had, as in nine times, perhaps, out of ten is the case, inherited her temperament from her mother. She had also inherited something more, for she was like her in face. She had the same luxuriantly dark hair—a wonder to behold when it was let down over her shoulders—the same grey eyes, the same singularly erect attitude, and lips which, although they were not tight and screwed up, were always set with decision. But her distinguishing peculiarity was her inherited vivacity, which was perfectly natural, but frequently exposed her—just as it did her mother—to the charge of being theatrical. The criticism was as unjust in her case as in that of her mother, if by being theatrical we mean being unreal. The unreal person is the half-alive languid person. Pauline felt what she said, and acted it in every gesture. Her precious promptitude of expression made her invaluable as a companion to her father. He was English all over and all through; hypochondriacal, with a strong tendency to self-involution and self-absorption. She was only half English, or rather altogether French, and when he came home in the evening he often felt as if some heavy obstruction in his brain and about his heart were suddenly dissolved. She and her mother were like Hercules in the house of Admetus. Before Hercules has promised to rescue Alcestis we feel that the darkness has disappeared. Pauline was loved by her father with intense passion. When she was a little child, and he was left alone with a bitter sense of wrong, a feeling that he had more than his proper share of life’s misery, his heart was closed, and he cared for no friendship.