d to go on
this mission of mercy, does it comport with our duty as parents to
oppose it?"

"A mother is all mother"--murmured the captain, who rose from table,
kissed his wife's cheek affectionately, and left the room, beckoning to
the serjeant to follow.

Captain Willoughby had not been gone many minutes when the chaplain
made his appearance, attired in his surplice, and wearing his best wig;
an appliance that all elderly gentlemen in that day fancied necessary
to the dignity and gravity of their appearance. Mrs. Willoughby, to own
the truth, was delighted. If this excellent woman was ever unjust, it
was in behalf of her children; solicitude for whom sometimes induced
her to overlook the rigid construction of the laws of equality.

"We will see which best understands the influence of the sacred office,
captain Willoughby, or myself;" observed the chaplain, with a little
more importance of manner than it was usual for one so simple to
assume. "I do not believe the ministry was instituted to be brow-beaten
by tribes of savages, any more than it is to be silenced by the
unbeliever, or schismatic."

It was very evident that the Rev. Mr. Woods was considerably excited;
and this was a condition of mind so unusual with him, as to create a
species of awe in the observers. As for the two young women, deeply as
they were interested in the result, and keenly as Maud, in particular,
felt everything which touched the fortunes of Robert Willoughby,
neither would presume to interfere, when they saw one whom they had
been taught to reverence from childhood, acting in a way that so little
conformed to his ordinary manner. As for Mrs. Willoughby, her own
feelings were so much awakened, that never had Mr. Woods seemed so
evangelical and like a saint, as at that very moment; and it would not
have been difficult to persuade her that he was acting under something
very like righteous superhuman impulses.

Such, however, was far from being the case. The worthy priest had an
exalted idea of his office; and, to fancy it might favorably impress
even savages, was little more than carrying out his every-day notions
of its authority. He conscientiously believed that he, himself, a
regularly ordained presbyter, would be more likely to succeed in the
undertaking before him, than a mere deacon; were a bishop present, he
would cheerfully have submitted to his superior claims to sanctity and
success. As for arch-bishops, arch-deacons, deans, rural