If it were Mr. Blackstone, certainly I knew no man who could understand her better, or whose modes of thinking and working would more thoroughly fall in with her own. True, he was peculiar; that is, he had kept the angles of his individuality, for all the grinding of the social mill; his manners were too abrupt, and drove at the heart of things too directly, seldom suggesting a _by-your-leave_ to those whose prejudices he overturned: true, also, that his person, though dignified, was somewhat ungainly,--with an ungainliness, however, which I could well imagine a wife learning absolutely to love; but, on the whole, the thing was reasonable. Only, what would become of her friends? There, I could hardly doubt, there lay the difficulty! Ay, _there_ was the rub! Let no one think, when I say we went to Mr. Blackstone's church the next Sunday, that it had any thing to do with these speculations. We often went on the first Sunday of the month. "What's the matter with Blackstone?" said my husband as we came home. "What do _you_ think is the matter with him?" I returned. "I don't know. He wasn't himself." "I thought he was more than himself," I rejoined; "for I never heard even _him_ read the litany with such fervor." "In some of the petitions," said Percivale, "it amounted to a suppressed agony of supplication. I am certain he is in trouble." I told him my suspicions. "Likely--very likely," he answered, and became thoughtful. "But you don't think she refused him?" he said at length. "If he ever asked her," I returned, "I fear she did; for she is plainly in trouble too." "She'll never stick to it," he said. "You mustn't judge Marion by ordinary standards," I replied. "You must remember she has not only found her vocation, but for many years proved it. I never knew her turned aside from what she had made up her mind to. I can hardly imagine her forsaking her friends to keep house for any man, even if she loved him with all her heart. She is dedicated as irrevocably as any nun, and will, with St. Paul, cling to the right of self-denial." "Yet what great difficulty would there be in combining the two sets of duties, especially with such a man as Blackstone? Of all the men I know, he comes the nearest to her in his devotion to the well-being of humanity, especially of the poor. Did you ever know a man with such a plentiful lack of condescension? His feeling of human equality amounts almost to a fault; for surely he ought sometimes to speak as knowing better than they to whom he speaks. He forgets that too many will but use his humility for mortar to build withal the Shinar-tower of their own superiority." "That may be; yet it remains impossible for him to assume any thing. He is the same all through, and--I had almost said--worthy of Saint Clare. Well, they must settle it for themselves. We can do nothing."