A picture rose in Godfrey's mind of his father with his eye to
keyholes, or peering through fences with wide-open ears, but wisely he
did not pursue the subject.

"My son," continued and ended Mr. Knight, "I have watched you closely
and I am sure that your weakness lies this way. Woman is and always
will be the sin that doth so easily beset you. Even as a child you
loved Mrs. Parsons much more than you did me, because, although old
and unsightly, she is still female. When you left your home this
morning for the first time, who was it that you grieved to part from?
Not your companions, the other boys, but Mrs. Parsons again, whom I
found you embracing in that foolish fashion, yes, and mingling your
tears with hers, of which at your age you should be ashamed. Indeed I
believe that you feel being separated from that garrulous person, who
is but a servant, more than you do from me, your father."

Here he waited for Godfrey's contradiction, but as none came, went on
with added acerbity:

"Of that /anguis in herba/, that viper, Isobel, who turns the pure
milk of the Word to poison and bites the hand that fed her, I will say
nothing, nothing," (here Godfrey reflected that Isobel would have been
better described as a lion in the path rather than as a snake in the
grass) "except that I rejoice that you are to be separated from her,
and I strictly forbid any communication between you and her, bold,
godless and revolutionary as she is. I had rather see any man for
whose welfare I cared, married to a virtuous and pious-minded
housemaid, than to this young lady, as she is called, with all her
wealth and position, who would eat out his soul with her acid unbelief
and turn the world upside down to satisfy her fancy. Now I must go or