“I had forgotten them quite.”
“In every other sense he was a great man.”
“I cannot allow it. He was intellectually a great man, but morally a small man.”
“Such refinements are not easily followed.”
“I will undertake to make the poorest woman in my congregation understand that.”
“Why don’t you try your friend Mrs Oldcastle, then? It might do her a little good,” said Miss Hester, now becoming, I thought, a little spiteful at hearing her favourite treated so unceremoniously. I found afterwards that there was some kindness in it, however.
“I should have very little influence with Mrs Oldcastle if I were to make the attempt. But I am not called upon to address my flock individually upon every point of character.”
“I thought she was an intimate friend of yours.”
“Quite the contrary. We are scarcely friendly.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” said Miss Jemima, who had been silent during the little controversy that her sister and I had been carrying on. “We have been quite misinformed. The fact is, we thought we might have seen more of you if it had not been for her. And as very few people of her own position in society care to visit her, we thought it a pity she should be your principal friend in the parish.”