herself a Martha. She was true as steel to the interests of those in
whose life hers was involved, but only their dusty interests, not those
which make man worth God's trouble. She was a vessel of clay in an
outhouse of the temple, and took on her the airs--not of gold, for gold
has no airs--but the airs of clay imagining itself gold, and all the
golden vessels nothing but clay.

"I put it to you, Richard Colman," she went on, "whether good ever came
of reading poetry, and falling asleep under hay-stacks! He actually
writes poetry!--and we all know what that leads to!"

"Do we?" ventured her brother-in-law. "King David wrote poetry!"

"Richard, don't garble! I will not have you garble! You know what I mean
as well as I do myself! And you know as well as I do what comes of
writing poetry! That friend of Walter's who borrowed ten pounds of
you--did he ever pay you?"

"He did, Ann."

"You didn't tell _me_!"

"I did not want to disappoint you!" replied Richard, with a sarcasm she
did not feel.

"It was worth telling!" she returned.

"I did not think so. Everybody does not stick to a bank-note like a
snail to the wall! I returned him the money."