"He was returning from a tour through Wales, and had introductions
to me from some Manchester friends of mine, to avail himself of
which I found he had gone some thirty miles out of his way."

"Complimentary to you, at least."

"To Lady Jane, I suspect, rather than to me; for he told me broadly
enough that all the flattering attentions which he had received in
Manchester-where, you know, all such prophets are received with open
arms, their only credentials being that, whatsoever they believe,
they shall not believe the Bible-had not given him the pleasure
which he had received from that one introduction to what he called
'the inner hearth-life of the English landed aristocracy.' But what
did you think of him?"

"Do you really wish to know?"

"I do."

"Then, honestly, I never heard so much magniloquent unwisdom talked
in the same space of time. It was the sense of shame for my race
which kept me silent all the evening. I could not trust myself to
argue with a gray-haired Saxon man, whose fifty years of life seemed
to have left him a child in all but the childlike heart which alone
can enter into the kingdom of heaven."

"You are severe," said Templeton, smilingly though, as if his
estimate were not very different from mine.

"Can one help being severe when one hears irreverence poured forth