"I am working at it, Ralph, in my spare moments, which are not very many; and I want to choose the right sort of night to tell it in, too. This one wouldn't do at all. There's no moon."
"If it is a horrid story, it is a pity you did not read it last time, before you set out to cross the moor."
"Oh, that night would not have done at all. A night like that drives all fear out of one's head. But indeed it is not finished yet.—May I repeat the parable now, Miss Cathcart?"
"What do you mean by a parable, Mr. Henry?" interrupted Mrs. Cathcart. "It sounds rather profane to me."
"I mean a picture in words, where more is meant than meets the ear."
"But why call it a parable?"
"Because it is one."
"Why not speak in plain words then?"
"Because a good parable is plainer than the plainest words. You remember what Tennyson says—that
'truth embodied in a tale
Shall enter in at lowly doors'?"