Cathedral would have been utterly shocking to his good father. His
mind, however, worked slowly, and he would have had nothing to say
even if he could have ventured to speak; but he was very anxious to
get away; and when Jeph would have kept him to hear the serjeant
expound a chapter of Revelation, he pleaded the necessity of getting
home in time to milk the cows, and made his escape.

On the whole it was a relief that Jeph was too much occupied with his
military duties to make visits to his home. It might not have been
over easy to keep the peace between him and Emlyn, fiery little
Royalist as she was, and too much used to being petted and
fascinating everyone by her saucy audacity to be likely to be afraid
of him.

If Patience crossed her she would have recourse to Stead, and he
could seldom resist her coaxing, or be entirely disabused of the
notion that his sister expected too much of her. And perhaps it was
true. Patience was scarcely likely to understand differences of
character and temperament, and not merely to recollect that Emlyn was
only eighteen months younger than she had been when she had been
forced into the position of the house mother. So, while Emlyn's
wayward fancies were a great trial, Steadfast's sympathy with them
was a greater one.

Stead continued to see Jeph when taking in the market produce, for
which he was always duly paid. Jeph also wished the whole family to
come in on Sunday to profit by the preaching of some of the great
Independent lights; but Stead, after trying it once, felt so sure
that Patience would be miserable at anything so unaccustomed, so
thunderous, and, as it seemed to him, so abusive, that he held to it