.

"Sir William will take the right measures, you need not doubt, Mrs
Howell. Sir William looks forward--Sir William is very cautious,
though, from his intrepidity, some might doubt it. The safety of
Deerbrook may very well be left to Sir William."

"No doubt, your ladyship, no doubt! We should be really afraid to go to
our beds, if we had not Sir William to rely on, as Miss Miskin said to
me only this morning. But, dear heart! what can Sir William, or an
angel from heaven do, in some sorts of dangers? If one might ask, for
one's confidential satisfaction, what does Sir William think of this
affair of the church-door?"

Amidst shrugs and sighs, Miss Miskin drew quite near, to hear the fate
of Deerbrook revealed by Lady Hunter. But Lady Hunter did not know the
facts about the church-door, on which the inquiry was based. This only
showed how secret some people could be in their designs. There was no
saying what Lady Hunter might think of it; it really seemed as if
Deerbrook, that had had such a good character hitherto, was going to be
on a level with Popish places--a place of devastation and conflagration.
Lady Hunter looked excessively grave when she heard this; and, if
possible, graver than ever, when she was told that not only had a
lantern been found in the churchyard with a bit of candle left in the
socket, but that a piece of charred stick, full three inches long, had
been picked up close by the church-door. After hearing this, Lady
Hunter would not commit herself any further. She asked for some
hair-pins, with a dignified and melancholy air. While she was selecting
the article, she let Mrs Howell talk on about the lantern and the
stick--that no one wondered about the lantern, knowing what practices
went on in the churchyard when quiet people were asleep; but that the
charred stick was too alarming: only that, to be sure, anybody might be
aware that those who would go into churchyards for one bad purpose would
be ready enough for another; and that Heaven only knew how long the
churches of the land would be safe while Lowrys were sent to Parliament,
and those that sent them there were all abroad. Lady Hunter sighed
emphatically, whispered her desire that the hair-pins should be set down
in her account, and went away, amidst deep and mournful curtseys from
those whom she left behind.

Under certain circumstances, the mind becomes so rapidly possessed of an
idea, is enabled to assimilate it so completel