"I am a man of my word," was the brisk answer.
"I beg pardon, I never said that you were not," said the doctor; "but we must be gentle with our patient yet awhile—and she has already been receiving visitors to-day."
"If Miss Gray objects, I will go."
Mattie said that she did not object, and, without further ceremony, the stranger began to pray for her, lowering his voice when he found that he need not shout at the top of his lungs to be heard in that little room, and even praying with some degree of eloquence, and a more than common degree of earnestness, which was some little apology—if not quite enough—for his unwarrantable intrusion.
It was a long prayer, and spared no one. The doctor, after waiting five minutes, and finding thanksgivings for recovery, and for shortening his bill, not in his line, took his departure on tiptoe; Mattie listened reverently, with her hands clasped in her lap; Harriet, who had not forgiven the intrusion, thought of Sidney more than the preacher, and threw the latter out in his extempore oration by suddenly poking the fire, and then dropping the poker with a crash into the fire-place. Ann Packet returned from marketing, and found the preacher in the middle of the room on his knees, and disgusted with his tactics, after the many times she had denied him admittance, proceeded to arrange the tea-tray and light the candle, with a noisy demonstrativeness that was perfectly unnecessary.
"Amen" sounded at last, and the little man rose to his feet, over which Ann Packet had twice stumbled, buttoned his black dress-coat across his chest, picked up his hat, and proceeded to retire without further words, like a man of business, who, having done his work, was in a hurry to get home. Suddenly he paused and regarded Harriet Wesden attentively. The light in the room was feeble, and might deceive him, he thought, for, with a quick hand, he caught up the candlestick and held it nearer to her.
"Miss Wesden—surely?"
Harriet saw nothing to recognize in the wiry-haired, high-cheek-boned preacher. He was a stranger to her.
"Yes, sir."
"It's not a common name, but I presume not connected with the stationer's in Great Suffolk Street?"