"Why? may I ask?"
"You show me that I have quite failed in my aim, so far at least as one of my hearers was concerned."
"How do you know that?"
"Do you remember what Louis the Fourteenth said to Massillon? 'Mon père, j'ai entendu plusieurs grands orateurs dans ma chapelle; j'en ai été fort content: pour vous, toutes les fois que je vous ai entendu, j'ai été très mécontent de moi-même!' "
Ellen smiled. Miss Sophia was silent for a moment.
"Then you really mean to be understood, that provided you fail of your aim, as you say, you do not care a straw what people think of you?"
"As I would take a bankrupt's promissory note in lieu of told gold. It gives me small gratification, Miss Sophia very small indeed to see the bowing heads of the grain that yet my sickle cannot reach."
"I agree with you most heartily," said Mr. George Marshman. The conversation dropped; and the two gentlemen began another in an undertone, pacing up and down the floor together.
The next morning, not sorrowfully, Ellen entered the sleigh again, and they set off homewards.
"What a sober little piece that is!" said Mr. Howard.