tongue, sir. I am as one risen from the dead,'--and 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