companied with you, as I am now ashamed to think I have done so
long, even to the danger of my soul's health.'

'In that case I may comfort myself, mistress Dorothy Vaughan,' said
Richard, 'that you will no longer count me a boy! But do you then no
longer desire that I should take one part OR the other and show
myself a man? Am I man enough yet for the woman thou art, Dorothy?
--But, Dorothy,' he added, with sudden change of tone, for she had
in anger turned to leave him, 'I love you dearly, and I am truly
sorry if I have spoken so as to offend you. I came hither eager to
share with you the great things I have learned since you left me
with just contempt a fortnight ago.'

'Then it is I whose foolish words have cast you into the seat of the
scorner! Alas! alas! my poor Richard! Never, never more, while you
thus rebel against authority and revile sacred things, will I hold
counsel with you.'

And again she turned to go.

'Dorothy!' cried the youth, turning pale with agony to find on the
brink of what an abyss of loss his zeal had set him, 'wilt thou,
then, never speak to me more, and I love thee as the daylight?'

'Never more till thou repent and turn. I will but give thee one
piece of counsel, and then leave thee--if for ever, that rests with
thee. There has lately appeared, like the frog out of the mouth of
the dragon, a certain tractate or treatise, small in bulk, but large
with the wind of evil doctrine. Doubtless it will reach your
father's house ere long, if it be not, as is more likely, already