"And if the hope we are saved by be no mockery, if St. Paul was not
the fool of his own radiant imaginings, you will be, my child.--But
now let us forget our miserable bodies. Come up to my room, and I
will read you a few lines that came to me this morning in the park."

"Won't you wait for Mr. Wingfold, uncle? He will be here yet, I
think. It can't be ten o'clock. He always looks in on Saturdays as
he goes home from his walk. I should like you to read them to him
too. They will do him good, I know."

"I would, my dear, willingly, if I thought he would care for them.
But I don't think he would. They are not good enough verses. He has
been brought up on Horace, and, I fear, counts the best poetry the
neatest."

"I think you must be mistaken there, uncle; I have heard him talk
delightfully about poetry."

"You must excuse me if I am shy of reading my poor work to any but
yourself, Rachel. My heart was wo much in it, and the subject is so
sacred--"

"I am sorry you should think your pearls too good to cast before Mr.
Wingfold, uncle," said Rachel, with a touch of disappointed temper.

"Nay, nay, child," returned Polwarth, "that was not a good thing to
say. What gives me concern is, that there is so much of the rough
dirty shell sticking about them, that to show them would be to wrong
the truth in them."