hen it comes to a
scandal----!"

"I did not say so. I abhor the sin. I have prayed earnestly for your
awakening, and shall do so in spite of the unregenerate hardness of
heart----"

"Hallo, Doctor! draw it mild, if you please. I am not one of your
parishioners, you know. Perhaps that is the reason your prayers for me
have not met with much attention. Let us stick to business: you may talk
shop as much as you please afterwards. What do you want me to do?"

"To sever your connexion with Marmaduke at once. Believe me, it will not
prove so hard a step as it may seem. You have but to ask for strength to
do it, and you will find yourself strong. It will profit you even more
than poor Marmaduke."

"Will it? I dont see it, Doctor. You think it will profit _you_: thats
plain enough. But it wont profit me; it wont profit Bob; and it wont by
any means profit the child."

"Not immediately, perhaps, in a worldly sense----"

"That is the sense I mean. Drop all that other stuff: I dont believe in
you parsons: you are about the worst lot going, as far as I can see.
Just tell me this, Doctor. Your sister is a very nice girl, I have no
doubt: she would hardly have snapped up Ned if she wasn't. But why is
she to have everything her own way?"

"I do not understand."

"Well, listen. Here is a young woman who has had every chance in life
that hick could give her: silk cradles, gold rattles, rank, wealth,
schooling, travelling, swell acquaintances, and anything else she chose
to ask for. Even when she is fool enough to want to get married, her
luck sticks to her, and she catches Ned, who is a man in a
thousand--though Lord forbid we should have many of his sort about! Yet
she's not satisfied. She wants _me_ to give up my establishment just to
keep her family in countenance."

"She knows nothing of my visit, I assure you."

"Even if she doesnt, it makes no odds as to the facts. She can go her
own way; and I will go mine. I shant want to visit her; and I dont
suppose she will visit me. So she need trouble herself no more than if
there was no such person as I in the world."

"But you will find that it will be greatly to your advantage to leave
this house. It is not our intention that you shall suffer in a pecuniary
point of view by doing so. My father is rich----"

"What is that to me? He doesnt want me to go and live with him, does
he?"

"You quite misunderstand me. No such idea ever entered----"

"There! go on. I only said t