Mr. Plowden took the cue, and advanced effusively on Dorothy with outstretched hand. “Yes, Miss Jones, I am sure you will congratulate me; and I ought to be congratulated. I am the luckiest—” Here he broke off. It really was very awkward. His hand remained limply hanging in the air before Dorothy, but not the slightest sign did that dignified little lady show of taking it. On the contrary, she drew herself up to her full height—which was not very tall—and fixing her steady blue eyes on the clergyman’s shifty orbs, deliberately placed her right hand behind her back. “I do not shake hands with people who play such tricks,” she said, quietly. Mr. Plowden’s hand fell to his side, and he stepped back. He did not expect such courage in anything so small. Florence, however, sailed in to the rescue. “Really, Dorothy, we do not quite understand.” “O yes, I think you do, Florence, or if you do not, then I will explain. Eva here was engaged to marry Ernest Kershaw. Eva here has just with her own lips told me that she still loves Ernest, but that she is obliged to marry—that man;” and she pointed with her little forefinger at Mr. Plowden, who recoiled another step. “Is not that true, Eva?” Eva bowed her head by way of answer. She still sat in the low chair, with her hands over her face. “Really, Dorothy, I fail to see what right you have to interfere in this matter,” said Florence. “I have the right of common justice, Florence—the right a friend has to protect the absent. Are you not ashamed of such a wicked plot to wrong an absent man? Is there no way” (addressing Mr. Plowden) “in which I can appeal to your feelings, to induce you to free this wretched girl you have entrapped?” “I only ask my own,” said Mr. Plowden, sulkily. “For shame! for shame! and you a minister of God’s Word! And you too, Florence! Oh, now I can read your heart, and see the bad thoughts looking from your eyes!” Florence for a moment was abashed, and turned her face aside. “And you, Eva—how can you become a party to such a shameful thing? You, a good girl, to sell yourself away from dear Ernest to such a man as that;” and again she pointed contemptuously at Mr. Plowden. “Oh, don’t, Dorothy, don’t; it is my duty. You don’t understand.” “Yes, Eva, I do understand. I understand that it is your duty to drown yourself before you do such a thing, I am a woman as well as you, and though I am not beautiful, I have a heart and a conscience, and I understand only too well.” “You will be lost if you drown yourself—I mean it is very wicked,” said Mr. Plowden to Eva, suddenly assuming his clerical character as most likely to be effective. The suggestion alarmed him. He had bargained for a live Eva.