‘I cannot help it,’ she said, turning to get away.     

       ‘You came here with the intention to fulfil the Word?’      

       ‘But I was mistaken.’      

       ‘Then why did you come?’      

       She tacitly implied that to be a question she did not care to answer.       ‘Please say no more to me,’ she murmured, and hastened to withdraw.     

       During this unexpected dialogue (which had reached Somerset’s ears through the open windows) that young man’s feelings had flown hither and thither between minister and lady in a most capricious manner: it had seemed at one moment a rather uncivil thing of her, charming as she was, to give the minister and the water-bearers so much trouble for nothing; the next, it seemed like reviving the ancient cruelties of the ducking-stool to try to force a girl into that dark water if she had not a mind to it. But the minister was not without insight, and he had seen that it would be useless to say more. The crestfallen old man had to turn round upon the congregation and declare officially that the baptism was postponed.     

       She passed through the door into the vestry. During the exciting moments of her recusancy there had been a perceptible flutter among the sensitive members of the congregation; nervous Dissenters seeming to be at one with nervous Episcopalians in this at least, that they heartily disliked a scene during service. Calm was restored to their minds by the minister starting a rather long hymn in minims and semibreves, amid the singing of which he ascended the pulpit. His face had a severe and even denunciatory look as he gave out his text, and Somerset began to understand that this meant mischief to the young person who had caused the hitch.     

       ‘In the third chapter of Revelation and the fifteenth and following verses, you will find these words:—     

       ‘“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.... Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and 

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