Strange that immortal souls should be found with the temerity to reflect upon mundane affairs in that hour!  Yet there were undoubtedly such in the congregation; there were perhaps many to whom the vision, if clear, was spasmodic and fleeting.  And among them the inhabitants of the Baines family pew!  Who would have supposed that Mr. Povey, a recent convert from Primitive Methodism in King Street to Wesleyan Methodism on Duck Bank, was dwelling upon window-tickets and the injustice of women, instead of upon his relations with Jehovah and the tailed one?  Who would have supposed that the gentle-eyed Constance, pattern of daughters, was risking her eternal welfare by smiling at the tailed one, who, concealing his tail, had assumed the image of Mr. Povey?  Who would have supposed that Mrs. Baines, instead of resolving that Jehovah and not the tailed one should have ultimate rule over her, was resolving that she and not Mr. Povey should have ultimate rule over her house and shop?  It was a pew-ful that belied its highly satisfactory appearance. (And possibly there were other pew-fuls equally deceptive.)

Sophia alone, in the corner next to the wall, with her beautiful stern face pressed convulsively against her hands, was truly busy with immortal things.  Turbulent heart, the violence of her spiritual life had made her older!  Never was a passionate, proud girl in a harder case than Sophia!  In the splendour of her remorse for a fatal forgetfulness, she had renounced that which she loved and thrown herself into that which she loathed.  It was her nature so to do.  She had done it haughtily, and not with kindness, but she had done it with the whole force of her will.  Constance had been compelled to yield up to her the millinery department, for Sophia’s fingers had a gift of manipulating ribbons and feathers that was beyond Constance.  Sophia had accomplished miracles in the millinery.  Yes, and she would be utterly polite to customers; but afterwards, when the customers were gone, let mothers, sisters, and Mr. Poveys beware of her fiery darts!

But why, when nearly three months had elapsed after her father’s death, had she spent more and more time in the shop, secretly aflame with expectancy?  Why, when one day a strange traveller entered the shop and announced himself the new representative of Birkinshaws—­why had her very soul died away within her and an awful sickness seized her?  She knew then that she had been her own deceiver.  She recognized and admitted, abasing herself lower than the lowest, that her motive in leaving Miss Chetwynd’s and joining the shop had been, at the best, very mixed, very impure.  Engaged at Miss Chetwynd’s, she might easily have never set eyes on Gerald Scales again.  Employed in the shop, she could not fail to meet him.  In this light was to be seen the true complexion of the splendour of her remorse.  A terrible thought for her!  And she could not dismiss it.  It contaminated her existence, this