his face
flashed up into sudden enthusiasm--'and woe to me if I speak not.
Oh, why, why are you gentlemen running off to Norway, and foreign
parts, whither God has not called you! Are there no graves in
Egypt, that you must go out to die in the wilderness!'

Lancelot, quite unaccustomed to the language of the Dissenting poor,
felt keenly the bad taste of the allusion.

'What can you mean?' he asked.

'Pardon me, sir, if I cannot speak plainly; but are there not
temptations enough here in England that you must go to waste all
your gifts, your scholarship, and your rank, far away there out of
the sound of a church-going bell? I don't deny it's a great
temptation. I have read of Norway wonders in a book of one Miss
Martineau, with a strange name.'

'Feats on the Fiord?'

'That's it, sir. Her books are grand books to set one a-thinking;
but she don't seem to see the Lord in all things, does she, sir?'

Lancelot parried the question.

'You are wandering a little from the point.'

'So I am, and thank you for the rebuke. There's where I find you
scholars have the advantage of us poor fellows, who pick up
knowledge as we can. Your book-learning makes you stick to the
point so much better. You are taught how to think. After all--God
forgive me if I'm wrong! but I sometimes think that there must be
more good in that human wisdom, and philosophy falsely so called,
than we Wesleyans hold. Oh, sir, what a blessing is a good
education! What you gentlemen might do with it, if you did but see
your own power! Are there no fish in England, sir, to be caught?
precious fish, with immortal souls? And is there not One who has
said, "Come with me, and I will make you fishers of men?"'

'Would you have us all turn parsons?'

'Is no one to do God's work except the parson, sir? Oh, the game
that you rich folks have in your hands, if you would but play it!
Such a man as Colonel Bracebridge now, with the tongue of the
serpent, who can charm any living soul he likes to his will, as a
stoat charms a rabbit. Or you, sir, with your tongue:--you have
charmed one precious creature already. I can see it: though
neither of you know it, yet I know it.'

Lancelot started, and blushed crimson.

'Oh, that I had your tongue, sir!' And the keeper blushed crimson,
too, and went on hastily,--

'But why could you not charm all alike! Do not the poor want you as
well as the rich?'

'What can I do