little men and had a club-foot. Mrs Polsue and Miss Oliver
(who detested one another) agreed that it would be a day of grace
when his term among them expired and he was "planned" for some other
place where Christianity did not matter as it did in Polpier.
They gave various reasons for this: but their real reason (had they
lived in a Palace of Truth) was that the Rev. Mark Hambly never spoke
evil of any one, nor listened to gossip save with a loose attention.

"The man has a wandering mind!" declared Miss Oliver. "It don't seem
able to fix itself. If you'll believe me, when I told him about
Bestwetherick's daughter and how she'd got herself into trouble at
last, all he could say was, 'Yes, yes, poor thing!'--and invite me to
kneel down an' pray she might come safely through it!"

"You surely weren't so weak as to do it?" said Mrs Polsue,
scandalised.

"Me?" exclaimed Cherry. "Pray for that baggage? To start with, I'd
be afeard the Lord'd visit it on me. . . . An' then it came out he'd
Known the whole affair for more than two months. The girl had been
to him."

"And he never told? . . . I tell you what, Cherry Oliver! It's my
belief that man would set up a confessional, if he could."

"Don't 'ee tell up such things, Mary-Martha Polsue, or I'll go an'
drown myself!"

"And why not?--he bein' so thick with Parson Steele, that sticks up
'High Mass' 'pon his church door and is well known to be