"Hush!" said Mrs. Deborah, raising her hand. "You young people think you have all to bear. Is it nothing to me to have that woman come into my place,—knowing her as I do? To see my only brother besotted with a—Oh me, oh me! How shall I ever tell Chloe?"
And Mrs. Deborah broke down in a burst of bitter weeping, dreadful to see in one usually so self-restrained. We were all about her in a moment. She clasped Amabel in her arms, and laying her head on her shoulder as she knelt on the floor, she sobbed bitterly.
As for me, I was too fiercely angry to cry. Mr. Cheriton, who had in some degree regained his self-control, at the sight of Mrs. Deborah's distress, now spoke in his deep voice—
"Let us pray!"
I shall never forget that prayer, nor how it sustained and comforted us all. We knelt in silence for some moments, and then Mrs. Deborah rose—
"Children, we must consider what is to be done!" said she. "It is evident that my brother has been set against Mr. Cheriton, by somebody interested in preventing this marriage. Be quiet while I read you his letter, or that part of it which relates to you."
We listened accordingly. The letter was a repetition, for the most part, of what Sir Julius had written to Mr. Cheriton, only that it entered more into particulars, accusing Mr. Cheriton of low intrigues, and conduct unbecoming a gentleman, and concluded by saying—
"I will never give my daughter to a canting Methodist. Let Mr. Cheriton give up his irregular practices—his field preaching and class-meetings, let him apologize to my wife for his affronts to her, and show by his conduct that he regrets them, and I may possibly be induced to overlook the natural irregularities of a young man. I say possibly, for I may have other and higher views for my daughter."
"He is very good!" said Mr. Cheriton, with a look on his face and a tone of bitterness in his voice, which I never witnessed or heard before. "If I will give up preaching to the poor and seeking the lost, that is to say, if I will give up the work I am doing for the Lord, he will possibly overlook what I am said to have done for the devil. As to Lady Throckmorton, as I have never affronted her, I owe her no apology. What say you, Amabel? Shall I give up my preaching to the colliers and ballast men, for your sake?"
"Never!" said Amabel firmly. "I would rather never see you more in this world, than that you should swerve one hair's breadth from your duty for my sake."