"Prays with you? Where does he pray with you?"
"The new stable-boy that our minister recommended, Charles, when that poor deluded Dick Bragg was found walking in the fields with his sister Patty on the Sabbath."
"You don't mean that Dick Bragg is turned away? He was, without exception, the steadiest lad in the parish."
"Works! works!" exclaimed Fanny, wringing her hands. "Oh, Charles! how your poor soul clings to the perdition of works!"
"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed Mowbray with great emotion, "where will all this end? What an existence for Helen, for Rosalind? Is there no cure for this folly,--this madness on one side, and this infernal craft and hypocrisy on the other?"
On hearing these words, Fanny uttered a cry which very nearly amounted to a scream, and running off towards the house with the fleetness of a startled fawn, left her brother in a state of irritation and misery such as he had never suffered before.
The idea of seeing Sir Gilbert Harrington immediately had perhaps more comfort and consolation in it than any other which could have suggested itself, and the lanes and the fields which divided Oakley from Mowbray were traversed at a pace that soon brought the agitated young man to the baronet's door.
"Is Sir Gilbert at home, John?" he demanded of an old servant who had known him from childhood; but instead of the widely-opened door, and ready smile which used to greet him, he received a grave and hesitating "I don't know sir," from the changed domestic.
"Is Lady Harrington at home?" said Charles, vexed and colouring.
"It is likely she may be, Mr. Mowbray," said the old man relentingly. "Will you please to wait one moment, Master Charles? I think my lady can't refuse--"
Charles's heart was full; but he did wait, and John speedily returned, saying almost in a whisper, "Please to walk in, sir; but you must go into my lady's closet,--that's the only safe place, she says."
"Safe?" repeated Charles; but he made no objection to the taking refuge in my lady's closet, and in another moment he found himself not only in the closet, but in the arms of the good old lady.
"Oh!--if Sir Gilbert could see me!" she exclaimed after very heartily hugging the young man. "He's a greater tiger than ever, Charles, and I really don't know which of us would be torn to pieces first;--but only tell me one thing before I abuse him any more:--how long have you been at home?"