there, for it is the vile work of one they call a puritan, though
where even the writer can vainly imagine the purity of such work to
lie, let the pamphlet itself raise the question. Read the evil
thing--or, I will not say read it, but glance the eye over it. It is
styled "Animadversions upon--." Truly, I cannot recall the
long-drawn title. It is filled, even as a toad with poison, so full
of evil and scurrilous sayings against good men, rating and abusing
them as the very off-scouring of the earth, that you cannot yet be
so far gone in evil as not to be reclaimed by seeing whither such
men and their inspiration would lead you. Farewell, Richard.'

With the words, and without a look, Dorothy, who had been standing
sideways in act to go, swept up the pleached alley, her step so
stately and her head so high that Richard, slowly as she walked
away, dared not follow her, but stood 'like one forbid.' When she
had vanished, and the light shone in full at the far end, he gave a
great sigh and turned away, and the old dial was forsaken.

The scrap of title Dorothy had given was enough to enable Richard to
recognise the pamphlet as one a copy of which his father had
received only a few days before, and over the reading of which they
had again and again laughed unrestrainedly. As he walked home he
sought in vain to recall anything in it deserving of such
reprobation as Dorothy had branded it withal. Had it been written on
the other side no search would have been necessary, for party spirit
(from which how could such a youth be free, when the greatest men of
his time were deeply tainted?), while it blinds the eyes in one
direction, makes them doubly keen in another. As it was, the abuse
in the pamphlet referred to, appeared to him only warrantable
indignation; and, the arrogance of an imperfect love leading him to