"Yes, he and his family dine with us next week; but you must contrive to hide the colour of your cloth if you wish to draw him out in conversation, especially religious conversation, for you Dissenting ministers do not stand very high in his esteem. He thinks that you have obtruded yourselves on an office which, for want of learning and episcopal ordination, you are not qualified to fill. He can relish none but Oxford or Cambridge men."
Mrs. Stevens, accompanied by a little niece, who was a weekly boarder at a ladies' school on the other side of the hill, came to invite us to tea in the alcove. We took a circuitous route through the shrubbery, till we entered on the lawn, at the bottom of which nature and art had combined their skill in the beautifying of this rural retreat. While sitting there, receiving the refreshment which the hand of an indulgent Providence had provided, and listening to the sweet harmony of the feathered tribe, the servant, who had just returned from the neighbouring town, delivered to his master a newspaper and a packet of letters. Mr. Stevens, having apologized for his rudeness (as he called it), proceeded to open the letters, and, to neutralize my displeasure, he placed the paper in my hands. "My dear," addressing himself to Mrs. Stevens, "I have some good news to tell you. Mr. Lewellin has accepted our invitation, and will be here, if Providence permit, next Thursday."
"One mercy, like one affliction," replied Mrs. Stevens, "seldom comes alone." Addressing herself to me, "I hope to have the pleasure of introducing to you a nephew, who has recently felt the power of the truth, which he once affected to despise."
"The society of Christian friends is always animating, but particularly the society of those who have recently passed from death to life, who have just been redeemed from the dominion of Satan, and brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God. There is usually such an expressive animation in their look and in their utterances; they have the freshness of their new life glowing upon them; and when speaking of what they know, and testifying of what they have seen and felt, they do it with a simplicity and earnestness which has a fine and powerful influence over our spirits. We glorify God in them."
"My nephew is the only son of a pious mother, and she is a widow. He was permitted to run to great lengths in the paths of evil, but the Lord has had mercy on him, and his conversion is, in my opinion, as great a proof of the divinity of this Christian faith as the conversion of St. Paul."
"Pray, is he the son of Mrs. Lewellin, who lives in the village of Stenmoor, that you refer to?"
"Yes; do you know him?"
"I have the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Lewellin, but not her son, only by character. To meet with him will be no small addition to the gratification I feel from my visit to your lovely villa."