"O--oh! to tear himself away from her, Smith. I want you to appeal to him. He's taken a great shine to you. You can appeal to his feeling for romance--poetry--whatever he calls his hell-fired--I mean his unfortunate impiety. You know how, and I don't. And there you reach the foundations of his character, as far as it's got any; there's his conscience if it's anywhere!"At one side of the kitchen there was a long table, where the food was[Pg 171] prepared previous to its introduction to the cooking-pot, and near this table there was a series of shelves where the plates, cups, saucers, and other articles of the dinner-service were kept. The kitchen could be shut off at night, like the other rooms, by means of paper screens, and it was here that the cook and her assistants slept when the labors of the day were over. The bedding, what little there was of it, was brought from a cupboard in one side of the room, and was altogether out of sight in the day. When not wanted, it was speedily put away, and a few minutes sufficed to convert the kitchen into a sleeping-room, or the sleeping-room into a kitchen.And although he shook his head vigorously, Arthur inwardly contemplated that region in his mind wherein existed all the matters that comprised a knowledge quite irrelevant to the practical affairs of life but very useful for the purpose of living.She spread it over the side of her bed, and in front of it proceeded to her evening devotions. In the pre-Silverdale days these were the briefest and most tepid orisons, now they were invested with sincerity and heart-felt worship. First she{110} thought over her misdoings for the day, a series of the most harmless omissions and commissions, which she set honestly before herself. She had not got up with the punctuality she had vowed: she had not kept her mind free from irritation when she went to see her grandmother: she had been guilty of gluttony with regard to jam pancakes; she had said she was tired just now when she never had felt fresher in her life. Then followed her prayers; like the rest of her vicars numerous Bible-class she read a chapter from the Gospels, and she finished up with the appointed meditation from the devotional book which Mr Silverdale had given her.[Pg 26]The pair looked at each other behind my neck for full ten seconds. Then the younger man leaned to his horse's mane in a silent laugh while Sergeant Jim looked me over again and remarked that he would be horn-swoggled!