from his
breast. "I heard the words, and I heard those other words, still
more cruel. You had better leave me now that I may humble myself in
prayer."

"That's all very well, Mr. Prong, and I'm sure I hope you will; but
situated as we are, of course I should choose to have an answer. It
seems to me that you dislike that kind of interference which I regard
as a wife's best privilege and sweetest duty. If this be so, it will
be better for us to part,--as friends of course."

"You have accused me of a great sin," he said; "of a great sin;--of a
great sin!"

"And so in my mind it would be."

"Judge not, lest ye be judged, Dorothea; remember that."

"That doesn't mean, Mr. Prong, that we are not to have our opinions,
and that we are not to warn those that are near us when we see them
walking in the wrong path. I might as well say the same to you, when
you--"

"No, Dorothea; it is my bounden duty. It is my work. It is that to
which I am appointed as a minister. If you cannot see the difference
I have much mistaken your character,--have much mistaken your
character."

"Do you mean to say that nobody but a clergyman is to know what's
right and what's wrong? That must be nonsense, Mr. Prong. I'm sorry
to say anything to grieve you,--" Mr. Prong was now shaking his head
again, with his eyes most pertinaciously closed,--"but there are some
things which really one can't bear."

But he only shook his head. His inward feelings were too many for
him, so that he could not at the present moment bring himself to give
a reply to the momentous proposition which his betrothed had made
him. Nor, indeed, had he at this moment fixed his mind as to the step
which Duty and Wisdom combined would call upon him to take in this
matter. The temper of the lady was not certainly all that he had
desired. As an admiring member of his flock she had taken all his
ghostly counsels as infallible; but now it seemed to him as though
most of his words and many of his thoughts and actions were made
subject by her to a bitter criticism. But in this matter he was
inclined to rely much upon his own strength. Should he marry the
lady, as he was still minded to do for many reasons, he would be to
her a loving, careful husband; but he would also be her lord and
master,--as was intended when marriage was made a holy ordinance. In
this respect he did not doubt himself or his own powers. Hard words
he could bear, and, as he thought, after a time control. So