Pause second.
Miss Mary, getting up the steam in her turn, asked whether Caroline had attended the Bible Society Meeting which had been held at Nunnely last Thursday night: the negative answer which truth compelled Caroline to utter—for last Thursday evening she had been sitting at home, reading a novel which Robert had lent her—elicited a simultaneous expression of surprise from the lips of the four ladies.
“We were all there,” said Miss Mary; “mama and all of us; we even persuaded papa to go: Hannah would insist upon it; but he fell asleep while Mr. Langweilig, the German Moravian minister, was speaking: I felt quite ashamed, he nodded so.”
“And there was Dr. Broadbent,” cried Hannah, “such a beautiful speaker! You couldn’t expect it of him, for he is almost a vulgar looking man.”
“But such a dear man,” interrupted Mary.
“And such a good man, such a useful man,” added her mother.
“Only like a butcher in appearance,” interposed the fair, proud Harriet. “I couldn’t bear to look at him: I listened with my eyes shut.”
Miss Helstone felt her ignorance and incompetency; not having seen Dr. Broadbent, she could not give her opinion. Pause third came on. During its continuance, Caroline was feeling at her heart’s core what a dreaming fool she was; what an un-
