"In matters of dress, Miss Warrender, did I become a married man I should naturally defer to the wishes of my wife."
"You don't mean to say that you would dress like other people?"
"Yes, Miss Warrender, I should do so, though it would not be without a pang that I should relinquish what I look upon as the true clerical garb."
"Don't think of it, Mr. Puffin, don't think of it, for an instant. The noble savage in his war-paint, his wampum, his feathers and his scalps, is a dignified object; but dress him in a suit of common clothes and cut his hair and he ceases to be interesting."
"Do you really think, Miss Warrender, that I should lose influence if I adopted the costume of ordinary life, should I enter upon the perilous sea of matrimony?"
"Well, Mr. Puffin, if you dressed like other people and married, I don't see how, to use your own expression, 'the female members of your congregation could continue to look upon you as one of themselves,' because if they did, you see you would be only Mrs. Puffin's sister after all."
"Yes, I am afraid that is the reductio ad absurdum. But we are wandering away, Miss Warrender; it was about my heart, and not about my garments, that I sought to converse with you."
"Oh, Mr. Puffin, I should make the worst of confidants; I never by any chance keep a secret."
"And yet I am ready to trust your discretion, Miss Warrender."