us
insolence tries my patience nearly beyond endurance; and again, because I
have heard unfavourable reports of him. On the question of right which he
disputes, I am perfectly informed. I am your tenant, my dear niece; when
I am gone you will learn how _scrupulous_ I have been; you will see how,
under the pressure of the most agonising pecuniary difficulties, the
terrific penalty of a misspent youth, I have been careful never by a hair's
breadth to transgress the strict line of my legal privileges; alike, as
your tenant, Maud, and as your guardian; how, amid frightful agitations,
I have kept myself, by the miraculous strength and grace vouchsafed
me--_pure_.

'The world,' he resumed after a short pause, 'has no faith in any man's
conversion; it never forgets what he was, it never believes him anything
better, it is an inexorable and stupid judge. What I was I will describe in
blacker terms, and with more heartfelt detestation, than my traducers--a
reckless prodigal, a godless profligate. Such I was; what I am, I am. If
I had no hope beyond this world, of all men most miserable; but with that
hope, a sinner saved.'

Then he waxed eloquent and mystical. I think his Swedenborgian studies had
crossed his notions of religion with strange lights. I never could follow
him quite in these excursions into the region of symbolism. I only
recollect that he talked of the deluge and the waters of Mara, and said, 'I
am washed--I am sprinkled,' and then, pausing, bathed his thin temples and
forehead with eau de Cologne; a process which was, perhaps, suggested by
his imagery of sprinkling and so forth.

Thus refreshed, he sighed and smiled, and passed to the subject of Doctor
Bryerly.

'Of Doctor Bryerly, I know that he is sly, that he loves money, was born
poor, and makes nothing by his profession. But he possesses many thousand
pounds, under my poor brother's will, of _your money_; and he has glided
with, of course a modest "nolo episcopari," into the acting trusteeship,
with all its multitudinous opportunities, of your immense property. That
is not doing so badly for a visionary Swedenborgian. Such a man _must_
prosper. But if he expected to make money of me, he is disappointed.
Money, however, he will make of his trusteeship, as you will see. It is a
dangerous resolution. But if he will seek the life of Dives, the worst I
wish him is to find the death of Lazarus. But whether, like Lazarus, he be
borne of angels into Abraham's bo