"No, I hope not," he said quietly.
"I mean," said Constance, "that it is very uncommon language to hear from a person like you."
"I suppose I know your meaning," he said after a minute's pause;--"but, Miss Constance, there is hardly a graver thought to me than that power and responsibility go hand in hand."
"It don't generally work so," said Constance rather uneasily.
"What are you talking about, Constance?" said Mrs. Evelyn.
"Mr. Carleton, mamma,--has been making me melancholy."
"Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I am going to petition that you will turn your efforts in another direction--I have felt oppressed all the afternoon from the effects of that funeral service I was attending--I am only just getting over it. The preacher seemed to delight in putting together all the gloomy thoughts he could think of."
"Yes!" said Mr. Stackpole, putting his hands in his pockets,--"it is the particular enjoyment of some of them, I believe, to do their best to make other people miserable."
Mr. Thorn said nothing, being warned by the impatient little hammering of Fleda's worsted needle upon the marble, while her eye was no longer considering her work, and her face rested anxiously upon her hand.
"There wasn't a thing," the lady went on,--"in anything he said, in his prayer or his speech,--there wasn't a single cheering or elevating consideration,--all he talked and prayed for was that the people there might be filled with a sense of their wickedness--"