"It's little better than a low-bred conventicle now, and what it will come to, if things go on like this, God knows."
"That ought to be a comfort," said the rector. "But I hardly know yet where I am. The fellow has knocked the wind out of me with his personalities, and I haven't got my breath yet. Have you a bottle of sherry open?"
Mrs. Ramshorn led the way to the dining-room, where the early Sunday dinner was already laid, and the decanters stood on the sideboard. The rector poured himself out a large glass of sherry, and drank it off in three mouthfuls.
"Such buffoonery! such coarseness! such vulgarity! such indelicacy!" cried Mrs. Ramshorn, while the parson was still occupied with the sherry. "Not content with talking about himself in the pulpit, he must even talk about his wife! What's he or his wife in the house of God? When his gown is on, a clergyman is neither Mr. This nor Mr. That any longer, but a priest of the Church of England, as by law established. My poor Helen! She has thrown herself away upon a charlatan! And what will become of her money in the hands of a man with such leveling notions, I dread to think."
"He said something about buying friends with it," said the rector.
"Bribery and corruption must come natural to a fellow who could preach a sermon like that after marrying money!"
"Why, my good madam, would you have a man turn his back on a girl because she has a purse in her pocket?"
"But to pretend to despise it! And then, worst of all! I don't know whether the indelicacy or the profanity was the greater!—when I think of it now, I can scarcely believe I really heard it!—to offer to show his books to every inquisitive fool itching to know my niece's fortune! Well, she shan't see a penny of mine—that I'm determined on."
"You need not be uneasy about the books, Mrs. Ramshorn. You remember the condition annexed?"
"Stuff and hypocrisy! He's played his game well! But time will show."