Green and softly guiding him into a trap, which I
confess made me set him down as conceited; but, as I say, I begin to
change my mind. By Jove! he must have worked pretty hard too in the
dust-bins to get together all those bits of gay rag and resplendent
crockery!"
"You heard him say he had help," said Helen.
"No, I don't remember that."
"It came just after that pretty simile about gleaning in old
fields."
"I remember the simile, for I thought it a very absurd one--as if
fields would lie gleanable for generations!"
"To be sure--now you point it out!" acquiesced Helen.
"The grain would have sprouted and borne harvests a hundred. If a
man will use figures, he should be careful to give them legs. I
wonder whom he got to help him--not the rector, I suppose?"
"The rector!" echoed Mrs. Ramshorn, who had been listening to the
young people's remarks with a smile of quiet scorn on her lip,
thinking what an advantage was experience, even if it could not make
up for the loss of youth and beauty--"The last man in the world to
lend himself to such a miserable makeshift and pretence! Without
brains enough even to fancy himself able to write a sermon of his
own, he flies to the dead,--to their very coffins as it were--and I
will not say STEALS from them, for he does it openly, not having
even shame enough to conceal his shame!"
"I like a man to hold his face to what he does, or thinks either,"
said Bascombe.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143