Coaching parties of the vastly rich made the town their Sunday stopping
place purely to hear him; not so much because the boldness of his
speculations kept his bishop frightened as because he always fused those
speculations on, white-hot, to the daily issues of private and public
life, in a way to make pampered ladies hold their breath, and men of the
world their brows. Such a man, to whom the least sin seemed black and
bottomless, yet who appeared to know by experience the soul's every
throe in the foulest crimes, was not going to show his joys on the
surface in quips and smiles.

"You should have heard," said the old street, "his sermon to husbands
and wives! His own bride turned pale. He turned pale himself."

It was wonder enough that even the bride could be happy, at such an
altitude, so to speak; immersing herself utterly, as she did, in the
interests that devoured him. All Angels forgot his gloom in the radiance
of her charms,--the sweet genuineness of her formal pieties, the tender
glow and universality of her sympathies, the witchery of her ever ready,
never too ready playfulness. It was captivating to see how instantly and
entirely she had fitted herself into a partnership so exacting; though
it was pitiful to note, on second glance, how the tint and contour of
her cheek were losing their perfection, and her eyes were showing those
rapid alternations of languor and vivacity which story-tellers call a
"hunted look." Yet, oh, yes, she was happy; the pair were happy. It was
as a pair that they were happiest. Else, said the old street, they could
not keep up the old Winslow-Byington alliance so beautifully.

To the truth of this general outline the three homes' domestics,
dominated by Sarah Stebbens, certified with cordial and loyal brevity.
Yet when Ruth wrote Godfrey how well things were going, there lurked