and that you can still pray to your Heavenly Father in your
distress. Be thankful you have been spared the worst, that you have
not grown hard.

I shall come back this week; your aunt wants you here, and a change
will do you good.


BLACKDEEP, 10th April 1839.

I am glad you went to Ely, for yesterday the parson called to see
you. He had received a letter from Mr. Craggs, and considered it
his duty as a Christian minister to endeavour to bring about a
reconciliation. I told him at once he might spare himself the
pains, for they would be useless. He replied that I ought to think
of the example. Well, at that I broke out. I asked him whether
that slut of a Quimby girl wasn't a worse example, who at five-and-
twenty had married Horrocks, the hoary old wretch, for his money,
and leads him a dog's life? Had he ever warned either of them?
They go to church regular. I was very free, and I said I thought it
was a bright example that a woman should have given up a fine house
and money in London because there was no love with them, and should
have come back to her mother at Blackdeep. Besides, I added, why
should my Esther suffer a living death for years for the sake of the
folk hereabouts? They weren't worth it. She was too precious for
that. 'Oh!' but he went on again, 'they have souls to be saved.
Husbands and wives may be led to imagine there is no harm in
separating, and may yield to the temptations of unlawful love.'
This made me very hot, and I gave it him back sharp that a sinner
could find in the Bible itself an excuse for his sin.