rant."

Flora smiled quietly. "Perhaps it will be, some day. Uncle Courtenay,"
she said.

"When the larks fall from the sky--eh, Miss Flora?" said Mr Bagnall,
rubbing his hands again in that odious way he has.

"When `they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,'" was
Flora's soft answer.

"Surely you don't suppose that literal?" replied Mr Bagnall, laughing.
"Why, you must be as bad--I had nearly said as _mad_--as my next
neighbour, Everard Murthwaite (of Holme Cultram, you know," he explained
aside to Father). "Why, he has actually got a notion that the Jews are
to be restored to Palestine! Whoever heard of such a mad idea? Only
think--the Jews!"

"Ridiculous nonsense!" said Father.

"Is it not usually the case," asked Mr Keith, who till then had hardly
spoken, "that the world counts as mad the wisest men in it?"

"Why, Mr Keith, you must be one of them!" cried Mr Bagnall.

"Of the wise men? Thank you!" said Mr Keith, drily.

There was a laugh at this.

"But I can tell you of something queerer still," Mr Bagnall went on.
"Old Cis Crosthwaite, in my parish, says she knows her sins are
forgiven."

Such exclamations came from most of the gentlemen at that!
"Preposterous!" said one. "Ridiculous!" said another. "Insufferable
presumption!" cried a third.

"Cis Crosthwaite!" said Sir Robert Dacre, more quietly.

"Yes, Cis Crosthwaite," repeated Mr Bagnall; "an old wretch of a woman
who has never been any better than she should be, and whom I met
sticking hedges only last winter. Her son Joe is the worst poacher in
the parish."

All the gentlemen seemed to think that most dreadful. I do not know why
it is they always appear to reckon snaring wild game which belongs
nobody a more wicked thing than breaking all the Ten Commandments.
Would it not have been in them if it were?

Only Sir Robert Dacre said, "Poor old creature! don't let us saddle her
with Joe's sins. I dare say she has plenty of her own."

"Plenty? I should think so. She is a horrid old wretch," answered Mr
Bagnall. "And do but think, if this miserable creature has not the
arrogance and presumption to say that her sins are forgiven!"

"I suppose Christ died that somebody's sins might be forgiven?" said Mr
Keith, in his quiet way.

"Of course, but those are respectable people," Mr Bagnall said, rather
indignantly.

"Before or after the forgiveness?" asked Mr Keith.

"Sir," said Mr Bagnall, rather stiffly, "I am no