"Do you conquer him?" she asked simply, but with the faintest little mocking smile.
Mr. Griffeth ignored the question. "You have golden hair, like the lady of the song," he said hastily. "If I were a soldier, Edith, and came home to you from battle, would you welcome me as that lady did her lover?" He touched her hair with his hand as he spoke.
A bright crimson color swept over her face, and she stood up instantly, drawing away from him, her eyes sparkling. Edith Yorke's innocence was not of that kind which is divorced from dignity and delicacy, and smiles at freedoms from everybody.
"Pardon me!" the minister stammered, and at the same moment, to complete his discomfiture, perceived that the curtain to the window directly behind them had been drawn aside, and that Mrs. Yorke stood there, flushed and haughty, with a look in her eyes which he had never seen there before.
His case was desperate, he knew, but he made an effort to recover. "I forgot myself," he said; "but I assure you I meant no harm."
"What harm could you have meant, sir?" said the lady, drawing herself up.
It was not an easy question to answer.
"You have probably made the mistake of supposing that the young ladies in my family are as free in their manners as those in some other families you may know. It is a mistake. I have taken care that their education shall second and confirm what is always the impulse of a refined nature: to regard such freedoms as offences when coming from any one but the one chosen to receive all favors."
Mr. Griffeth might apologize, and the apology be civilly received, but, when he walked away from that house, he felt that he would not be welcomed in it again. And so the church in Seaton lost a friend and found an enemy. The next Sunday the most bitter anti-Catholic sermon of the season was preached from the Universalist pulpit.
A few weeks after came a peremptory letter from Miss Clinton. She wanted Carl to come up to see her. What was he burying himself in the country for? Was he raising turnips? Was he going to marry some freckled dairy-maid? If he was, she did not wish to set eyes on him. What did they mean by leaving her to die alone, without a relative near her? It was unnatural! It was a shame! Let Carl come at once. If he pleased her, she would provide for him.