Mrs. Guinness observed his agitation with calm triumph. She knew but
one ladder into heaven, and that, short and narrow, was through her
own Church. Kitty was stepping up on a high rung of it. Once the wife
of this good Christian man, and her soul was safe. A sudden vision of
her flitted before her mother in grave but rich attire (fawn-colored
velvet, for instance, for next winter, trimmed with brown fur),
to suit her place as the wife of the wealthy Muller, head of the
congregation and the Reformatory school: she would be instant, too, at
prayer--meetings and Dorcas societies. This was Mrs. Guinness's world,
and she reasoned according to the laws of it. She rejoiced as Hannah
did when she had safely placed her child within the temple of the
Lord.

And yet with that hint of the social position of the Mullers had come
the certainty to her that this marriage could never be. A shadow had
stood suddenly before her--a boy's face, the only one before which
her calm, complacent soul had ever quailed or shrunk. The pleasant,
apple-cheeked woman, like the rest of us, had her ghost--her sin
unwhipped of justice. She stood calmly as Mr. Muller hurried his
explanations, piling them one on top of the other, but she did not
hear a word of them. If he should ever hear Hugh's story! Dead though
he was, if that were known not a beggar in the street would marry
Catharine.

But since Fanny Guinness was an amiable, pink-cheeked belle in the
village choir, she had never turned her back on an enemy: why should
she now? Hugh Guinness had hated her as the vicious always hate
the good, but she was thankful she had smiled and greeted him with
Christian forbearance to the very last. As for this danger coming from