in, and your daughters would be what Martha and Mary and Lydia and
Dorcas were, and their title to ladyhood founded on their degrees of
goodness."

"Shall I tell you what would be the very thing for you," said Mr. Grand,
quite quietly.

"Yes, sir; what?" asked Joshua eagerly.

"This whip across your shoulders! And, by George, if I were not a
clergyman, I would lay it there with a will!" cried the parson.

No one had ever seen Joshua angry since he had grown up. His temper was
proverbially sweet, and his self-control was a marvel. But this time he
lost both.

"God shall smite thee, thou white wall!" he cried with vehemence. "You
are the gentleman, sir, and I am only a poor carpenter's son; but I
spurn you with a deeper and more solemn scorn than you have spurned me!"

He lifted his hand as he said this, with a strange and passionate
gesture, then turned himself about and went in, and Mr. Grand drove off
more his ill-wisher than before. He also made old Davidson, Joshua's
father, suffer for his son, for he took away his custom from him, and
did him what harm in the neighbourhood a gentleman's ill word can do a
working man.


_III.--Is Christ's Way Livable?_