Before long she began to consider herself, entitled by special grace of state, to interpret _in partibus_ the will of the Almighty to less privileged individuals; and, in course of time, the enthusiastic spouse succeeded in taking the more trivial parish cares almost as completely off the parson’s hands as those of his household. What if, her flow of ideas being in excess of memory and understanding, the language of the Bindon prophetess were on occasions the cause of much secret amusement to the scholarly gentleman—one sip of her exquisite coffee was sufficient to re-establish the balance of things! “Sophia’s texts will do the villagers quite as much good as mine,” he used to say, philosophically, and allow himself an extra spell with his Horace or his _Spectator_, whilst his wife sallied forth upon the path of war and mission. With a large garden hat tied somewhat askew under the most amenable of her chins, with exuberant ringlets bobbing excitedly round her face, Madam Tutterville, as old-fashioned Bindon invariably called the parson’s lady—burst in upon Ellinor’s breakfast the morning after the latter’s arrival. It was a day of alternate moods, now with loud wind voice and storm-tears lamenting, like Shylock, the loss of its treasures; now, like prodigal Jessica, tossing the gold shekels into space, making mock in sunshine of age and sorrow, recklessly hurrying on the inevitable ruin. That Madam Tutterville had on her way been pelted with rain and buffeted with wind, her curls testified. But Ellinor, as she rose from behind her table by the open window, had the glory of a fresh sunburst on her hair and in her eyes. She had left her bed early, full of brisk plans which concerned the greater comfort of her father’s life and were also to reach as far as her cousin’s tower. But even as she fastened the crisp ’kerchief round a throat that shamed the cambric with its living white, she had been handed a note from Master Rickart himself. This was pencilled on a slip of paper, one half of which had obviously been devoted to some fugitive calculations, and which ran therefore in a curious strain: MY DEAR GIRL,—Do not Ash: salts (50) : (20.1722...) attempt I beg of you, to disturb traces of sulphur but not me this morning. I shall be gaugeable Calcium as before in engaged on important work re- the ratio 7.171 5.32 quiring the undivided attention 7027.001 which solitude alone can secure. Mem. try in Val. foetida. Ellinor read and was dashed, read again and laughed aloud.—Gracious powers what a pair of eccentrics had her relatives grown into!