Mrs Thompson looked plaintively towards the painting, and heaved a sigh.
"Ah, dear good man! He has got his enemies," said she.
"Mrs Thompson!" exclaimed her husband, "I have done with that good man from this day for'ards; and I do hope, old 'ooman, that you'll go next Sunday to church with me, as we used to do afore you got that pictur painted."
"It's no good talking, Thompson," answered the lady, positively and firmly. "I can't sit under a cold man, and there's an end of it."
"There, that's the way you talk, missus."
"Why, you know, Thompson, every thing in the church is cold."
"No, not now, my dear—they've put up a large stove. You'll recollect you haven't been lately."
"Besides, do you think I can sit in a place of worship, and hear a man say, 'Let us pray,' in the middle of the service, making a fool of one, as if we hadn't been praying all the time? As that dear and persecuted saint says, (turning to the picture,) it's a common assault to our understandings."
"Now, Polly, that's just always how you go off. If you'd only listen to reason, that could all be made out right in no time. The clergyman doesn't mean to say, let us pray, because he hasn't been praying afore;—what he means is—we have been praying all this time, and so we'll go on praying again—no, not again exactly—but don't leave off. That isn't what I mean either. Let me see, let us pray. Oh, yes! Why—stay. Where is it he does say, let us pray? There, I say, Stukely, you know it all much better than I do. Just make it right to the missus."
"It is not difficult," said I.