During his second year he heard from Davidina that she had fallen out of her uncle’s favour,--an event which, having the two wills in mind he did not disapprove; but when he heard later that a hitherto unconsidered great-niece had appeared upon the scene and was keeping house for his uncle, his mind grew troubled. This was a cousin whom he had never seen, named Caroline; the circumstance that she had lately become an orphan made her available as a house-companion for one who, needing an arm to lean on, did not yet require a nurse. She was older than Jonathan by three years, and had managed from her mother’s side to be of fair complexion. Davidina nicknamed her ‘the dream-cow’; and when Mr. Trimblerigg saw her for the first time on his return home during vacation he had to admit that the name suited. She was a large creamy creature, slightly mottled with edges of pink; vague, equable, good-tempered, taking things as they came; rather stupid to talk to, but not uncomely to look upon. As he gazed on her at their first meeting, Mr. Trimblerigg’s calculating mind got ahead of him before he could prevent; and ‘Shall I have to marry her?’ was the thought which suddenly presented itself. With equal suddenness came another, ‘If I do, what will Isabel Sparling say? There’ll be trouble.’ Isabel Sparling was the woman student whom he had converted to True Belief; and the conversion had been of an emotional character. She was an ardent believer in the ministry of women, and having the prophetess of Scripture upon her side--Huldah the prophetess who dwelt in the college at Jerusalem for one, as Mr. Trimblerigg was quick to remember--had no difficulty in persuading him that the ministry of women was compatible with ‘True Belief.’ Mr. Trimblerigg had seized on it, indeed, with avidity as a forward point for him to score in discussions which forced him generally to take the reactionary line. There was also among True Believers a more obvious opening for women than elsewhere. The ministry of the connection was diminishing together with its funds; and there does come a point, in spiritual work as well as industry, when what cannot support a man will support a woman. In exchange, therefore, for the allegiance of a new convert for theological debates which left him so often in a minority of one, Mr. Trimblerigg blithely gave in his adherence to the ministry of women; and in the College debate on the subject, which took place in his second year, they won an unexpected victory, all but three of the women students, and more than a third of the men students voting in the affirmative.