“But Bishop—you don’t consider—”
“Oh, of course, I know there’s been private talk about her; nobody knows who her mother was, and they say whoever she was you was never married to her, so she couldn’t have been born right, but I ain’t bigoted like some I could name, and I stand ready to be her Saviour on Mount Zion.”
He waited with something of noble concession in his mien.
The other seemed only now to have fully sensed the proposal, and, with real terror in his face, he began to urge the Bishop toward the house, after looking anxiously back to where the child still lingered with the mist of pink blossoms against the leafless boughs above her.
“Come, Brother Seth—come, I beg of you—we’ll talk of it—but it can’t be, indeed it can’t!”
“Let’s ask her,” suggested the Bishop, disinclined to move.
“Don’t, don’t ask her!” He seized the other by the arm.
“Come, I’ll explain; don’t ask her now, at any rate—I beg of you as a gentleman—as a gentleman, for you are a gentleman.”
The Bishop turned somewhat impatiently, then remarked with a dignified severity:
“Oh, I can be a gentleman whenever it’s necessary!”