The landlady, by means of a rapid mental process of multiplication, rose manfully to the occasion.
“All right, fifteen shillings,” said the suffragette. “I’ll come in to-morrow.”
She went to see the priest’s sister, but to her mild annoyance found the priest instead.
“My sister suggested that you should visit the Wigskys,” said the priest, who never bore malice, as far as one could see. He never allowed you for a moment to forget that he was a Christian. “Mrs. Wigsky’s latest baby hasn’t been christened. Also I think the eldest girl must be getting into bad ways; she has left the excellent place I found for her.”
“And must I persuade the baby to be christened?”
“Not the child itself. You had better do your best to persuade the mother.”
“But supposing she refuses on principle?”
The priest fixed her with his piercing eye. “There can be no principle contrary to the Right,” he said. “The opposite to Right is Wrong.”
“How simple!” said the suffragette. “But won’t Hell be terribly overcrowded?”
The priest sighed, and certainly with reason. But he remembered that he was very broad-minded, and that he had often said that everybody had a right to their own opinion. He remembered that the soft answer that turneth away the fatuity of women had found a place even in the New Testament.