Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/86

74 that moment helping himself to a pretty stiff glass of the same.

"By no means!" replied the oracle with a Jove-like nod; "these things are all blessings and mercies, if we only knew how to make use of them."

"But Mrs. Graham doesn't think so. You shall just hear now, what she told us the other day—I told her I'd tell you."

And my mother favoured the company with a particular account of that lady's mistaken ideas and conduct regarding the matter in hand, concluding with, "Now don't you think it is wrong?"

"Wrong!" repeated the vicar, with more than common solemnity—"criminal, I should say—criminal!—Not only is it making a fool of the boy, but it is despising the gifts of Providence, and teaching him to trample them under his feet."

He then entered more fully into the question, and explained at large the folly and impiety of