Pennycoop had had her speech ready to her tongue. It was just what it
should have been, and no more.

It referred casually, without insisting on the point, to the duty
incumbent upon all of us to remember on occasion we were Christians;
that our privilege it was to forgive and forget; that, generally
speaking, there are faults on both sides; that partings should never
take place in anger; in short, that little Mrs. Pennycoop and George,
her husband, as he was waiting to say for himself, were sorry for
everything and anything they may have said or done in the past to hurt
the feelings of the Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe, and would like to
shake hands with him and wish him every happiness for the future. The
chilling attitude of the Rev. Augustus scattered that
carefully-rehearsed speech to the winds. It left Mrs. Pennycoop
nothing but to retire in choking silence, or to fling herself upon the
inspiration of the moment and make up something new. She choose the
latter alternative.

At first the words came halting. Her husband, man-like, had deserted
her in her hour of utmost need and was fumbling with the door-knob.
The steely stare with which the Rev. Cracklethorpe regarded her,
instead of chilling her, acted upon her as a spur. It put her on her
mettle. He should listen to her. She would make him understand her
kindly feeling towards him if she had to take him by the shoulders and
shake it into him. At the end of five minutes the Rev. Augustus
Cracklethorpe, without knowing it, was looking pleased. At the end of
another five Mrs. Pennycoop stopped, not for want of words, but for
want of breath. The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe replied in a voice
that, to his own surprise, was trembling with emotion. Mrs. Pennycoop
had made his task harder for him. He had thought to leave