e was a well read young woman, and did not hesitate to
suffer this to appear.

And then there was a momentary pause. Northcote was confused, it must be
allowed, by thus coming face to face, without previous warning, with the
man whom he had so violently assailed. Reginald had the best of it in
every way, for he was the man injured, and had it in his power to be
magnanimous; and he had the advantage of full warning, and had prepared
himself. Besides, was not he the superior by every social rule? And that
consciousness is always sweet.

"If Mr. Northcote is new to Carlingford, he will probably not know what
a fine point of view we have here. That, like so many other things,"
said Reginald, pointedly, "wants a little personal experience to find it
out."

"For that matter, to see it once is as good as seeing it a hundred
times," said Northcote, somewhat sharply; for to give in was the very
last thing he thought of. A little glow of anger came over him. He
thought Phoebe had prepared this ordeal for him, and he was vexed, not
only because she had done it, but because his sense of discomfiture
might afford a kind of triumph to that party in the connection which was
disposed, as he expressed it, to "toady the Church."

"Pardon me, I don't think you can judge of anything at a first view."

"And, pardon me, I think you see everything most sharply and clearly at
a first view," said the Nonconformist, who was the loudest; "certainly
in all matters of principle. After a while, you are persuaded against
your will to modify this opinion and that, to pare off a little here,
and tolerate a little there. Your first view is the most correct."

"Well," said Phoebe, throwing herself into the breach, "I am glad you
don't agree, for the argument is interesting. Will you come in and fight
it out? You shall have some tea, which will be pleasant, for it shall be
hot. I really cannot stay out any longer; it is freezing here."

The new-comer prepared to follow; but Reginald hesitated. Pride
whispered that to go into the house of Tozer, the butterman, was
something monstrous; but then it might be amusing. This "Dissenting
fellow," no doubt, was a drawback; but a kind of angry antagonism and
disdain half-attracted him even to the Dissenting fellow. It might be
well, on the whole, to see what kind of being such a person was. All
curious phenomena are attractive to a student. "The proper study of
mankind is man," Reginald said to himself. Befo