be. And I've lived to
see my maid do hers, as I knew she would, when the Lord called on her. I
have,--but don't tell her, she's well employed, and has sorrows enough
already, some that you'll know of some day--"

"You must not talk," quoth Tom, who guessed his meaning, and wished to
avoid the subject.

"Yes, but I must, sir. I've no time to lose. If you'd but go and see
after those poor Heales, and come again. I'd like to have one word with
Mr. Headley; and my time runs short."

"A hundred, if you will," said Frank.

"And now, sir," when they were alone, "only one thing, if you'll excuse
an old sailor," and Willis tried vainly to make his usual salutation;
but the cramped hand refused to obey,--"and a dying one too."

"What is it?"

"Only don't be hard on the people, sir; the people here. They're
good-hearted souls, with all their sins, if you'll only take them as you
find them, and consider that they've had no chance."

"Willis, Willis, don't talk of that! I shall be a wiser man henceforth,
I trust. At least I shall not trouble Aberalva long."

"Oh, sir, don't talk so; and you just getting a hold of them!"

"I?"

"Yes, you, sir. They've found you out at last, thank God. I always knew
what you were and said it. They've found you out in the last week; and
there's not a man in the town but what would die for you, I believe."

This announcement staggered Frank. Some men it would have only hardened
in their pedantry, and have emboldened them to say: "Ah! then these men
see that a High Churchman can work like any one else, when there is a
practical sacrifice to be made. Now I have a standing ground which no
one can dispute from which to go on, and enforce my idea of what he
ought to be."

But, rightly or wrongly, no such thought crossed Frank's mind. He was
just as good a Churchman as ever--why not? Just as fond of his own ideal
of what a parish and a Church Service ought to be--why not? But the only
thought which did rise in his mind was one of utter self-abasement.

"Oh, how blind I have been! How I have wasted my time in laying down the
law to these people: fancying myself infallible, as if God were not as
near to them as He is to me--certainly nearer than to any book on my
shelves--offending their little prejudices, little superstitions, in my
own cruel self-conceit and self-will! And now, the first time that I
forget my own rules; the first time that I forget almost that I am a
priest, even a Christian