"You cannot do good here—you may do harm."
"Your pardon, but I am of a different opinion."
"Very well then."
Mattie gave a little impetuous tug to the bell; Ann Packet opened the door, and Mattie and her unwilling escort passed into the shop, the latter the object of immense attraction from the round-eyed, open-mouthed serving-maid. Events flowed on so regularly and monotonously in that quarter of the world, that the advent of a tall, well-dressed stranger, was a thing to be remarked, and, Ann Packet hoped, to be explained.
Mattie ran at once into the parlour, where her father was sitting over his work. He looked up with a bright smile as she entered.
"Where's Sidney, father?"
"In his own room."
"Here is his cousin. Sidney must be prepared to see him, or to deny himself to him."
"What cousin is that?" Mr. Gray asked, a little irrelevantly, being taken aback by the news.
Mattie explained, and ran up-stairs. Mr. Gray pushed aside the stone upon which he had been writing, turned up his coat-cuffs, and buttoned his black coat to the chin. He knew the story in which that cousin had played his part perfectly well; had he forgotten it, his remembrance of old faces would not have betrayed him in this instance. Here was the man to whom he had administered a fugitive lecture in the dead of night at Ashford railway station, once more before him; here was a chance of touching the heart of a most incorrigible sinner—a sinner worthy of his powers of conversion. He would tackle him at once; he would warn him of the errors of his ways, and of the infallible results of them, if he did not listen to the warning voice. He was just in the mood for delivering a sermon, and there was no time like the present. Now for it!