irit of
the immovable one was in them.

After having measured with a glance of perfect composure the distance
between two flights of steps, one on each side of the street, he made
the sleek pair turn, slowly and step by step, so short and sharp that it
seemed as though the elegant carriage must be crushed to fragments,
but so accurately that there was not an inch too much or too little on
either side.

Now he once more sat stiff as a poker, still measuring with his eyes the
distance between the steps. He even made a mental note of the number
of a constable who had watched the feat, in order to have a witness to
appeal to if his account of it should be received with scepticism at the
stables.

Mrs. Warden allowed the poor-law inspector to hand her into the
carriage. She asked him to call upon her the following day, and gave him
her address.

"To Advocate Abel's!" she cried to the coachman. The fat gentleman
lifted his hat with a mealy smile, and the carriage rolled away.

As they gradually left the poor quarter of the town behind, the motion
of the carriage became smoother, and the pace increased. And when they
emerged upon the broad avenue leading through the villa quarter, the
sleek pair snorted with enjoyment of the pure, delicate air from the
gardens, and the immovable one indulged, without any sort of necessity,
in three masterly cracks of his whip.

Mrs. Warden, too, was conscious of the delight of finding herself once
more in the fresh air. The experiences she had gone through, and, still
more, what she had heard from the inspector, had had an almost numbing
effect upon her. She began to realize the immeasurable distance between
herself and such people as these.

She had often thought there was something quite too sad, nay, almost
cruel, in the text: "Many are called, but few are chosen."

Now she understood that it _could_ not be otherwise.

How could people so utterly depraved ever attain an elevation at all
adequate to the demands of a strict morality? What must be the state of
these wretched creatures' consciences? And how should they be able to
withstand the manifold temptations of life?

She knew only too well what temptation meant! Was she not incessantly
battling against a temptation--perhaps the most perilous of all--the
temptation of riches, about which the Scriptures said so many hard
things?

She shuddered to think of what would happen if that brutish man and
these miserable women sudden