“He says they are not new-fangled, but as old as the Gospel and the Sermon on the Mount.”
“I cannot understand it. Somebody has got hold of him. I suppose Margaret Miller and Arthur Knight have between them turned his brain.”
“A set of hypocrites, pretending to be so much better than their neighbours! I have no patience with them. But it won’t last.”
“No; it won’t last.”
There were four or five other houses in Darentdale where those who stood aloof from the new movement tried to comfort themselves also, as well as they could, by declaring that it would not last, and no good would come of it.
Margaret Miller and Tom Whitwell had a royal time, assisted by the other young ladies of the village. “Margaret, can you find out what they do at ‘the public,’” asked Tom, “because I am going to compete with the publican for the favour of the men of our parish?”
“There is, first of all, the drink.”
“Yes; but my sisters are clever in the matter of eating and drinking. They have coached me up in a few facts, the most important of which is that the way to a man’s soul, as well as his heart, lies through his stomach. We have acted accordingly, and I really think that our viands are appetising enough to insure any man’s reform.”
“And the men like to be amused, you know; they cannot get on without that.”
“Well, Margaret, you must sing your sweetest, and I will talk to them. They liked to be talked to, don’t they? especially about politics.”