by the crowd. I gather that the
wickedness of London--its injustice and inequalities--have been
weighing upon your spirits, and you feel for the moment like some
escaped bird which has gained the freedom of the woods after beating
its wings for many weary months against the bars of its city cage. You
may have done well to escape, but beware of false ideals, and beware of
the inevitable reaction when you discover the wickedness of the
village, and learn that injustice and vice and slander, and a hundred
other hateful things, are not peculiar to city life."

"But surely," I Interposed, "the overcrowding, and the sweating and the
awful, awful wretchedness of the poor are wanting here."

"My dear young lady," he said, "I suppose you think that the devil is a
city gentleman whose attention is so much occupied with great concerns
that he has had no time to discover so insignificant a place as
Windyridge. You will find out your mistake. There are times when he
is very active here, but he has wit enough to vary his methods as
occasion requires.

"Sometimes, as Scripture and experience have shown you, he goes about
as a roaring lion, and there is no mistaking his presence; but at other
times he masquerades as an angel of light. You speak of the evils you
know, and it may be admitted that most of these are absent from
Windyridge, at any rate in their aggravated forms. But analyse these
various evils which have caused you to chafe against your environment,
and you will find that selfishness is at the root of them all, and
selfishness flourishes even in the soil which breeds the moorland
heather.

"Don't let this discourage you, however," he continued, as he held out
his hand, for we had now reached the gateway of the Hall; "the devil
has not undisputed possession here or elsewhere, and Windyridge may
help you to strike the eternal balance.

"Come to see me sometimes; I am an unconventional old man, and you need
not hesitate. I can at least lend you good books, and give you advice
from an experience dearly bought."

He grasped the collar of his coat again and walked slowly up the drive.

Dinner had been waiting quite ten minutes when I reached home, and I
found Mother Hubbard in a state of apprehension, partly lest some evil
should have befallen me, and partly lest the Yorkshire pudding, whose
acquaintance I was to make for the first time, should be so spoiled as
to prejudice my appreciation of its excellences from t