"You see, Mr. Christian, if you think of it, I am—I am—"
"You are her father's old friend. There, let us look on it as settled."
Mr. Bonnithorne looked on it as awkward. "Well, to say the truth, Mr. Christian, I'd—I'd rather not."
The old parson lifted two astonished eyes, and gazed at Mr. Bonnithorne over the rims of his spectacles. The lawyer's uneasiness increased. Then Parson Christian remembered that only a little while ago Mr. Bonnithorne had offered reasons why Paul should not marry Greta. They were rather too secular, those same reasons, but no doubt they had appealed honestly to his mind as a friend of Greta's family.
"Paul and Greta are going away," said the parson.
"So I judged."
"They go to Victoria to farm there," continued the parson.
"On Greta's money," added the lawyer.
Parson Christian looked again over the rims of his spectacles. Then for once his frank and mellow face annexed a reflection of the curl on the lawyer's lip. "Do you know," he said, "it never once came into my simple old pate to ask which would find the dross and which the honest labor?"
Mr. Bonnithorne winced. The simple old pate could, on occasion, be more than a match for his own wise head.