The New Magdalen

As well as her amazement would let her, Mercy excused herself from

guessing. She had never in all her life before spoken to any living

being so confusedly and so unintelligently as she now spoke to Julian

Gray!

He went on more gayly than ever, without appearing to notice the effect

that he had produced on her.

"Whom did I meet," he repeated, "when I was in full song? My bishop! If

I had been whistling a sacred melody, his lordship might perhaps have

excused my vulgarity out of consideration for my music. Unfortunately,

the composition I was executing at the moment (I am one of the loudest

of living whistlers) was by Verdi--"La Donna e Mobile"--familiar, no

doubt, to his lordship on the street organs. He recognized the tune,

poor man, and when I took off my hat to him he looked the other way.

Strange, in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow, to treat such

a trifle seriously as a cheerful clergyman whistling a tune!" He

pushed away his plate as he said the last words, and went on simply and

earnestly in an altered tone. "I have never been able," he said, "to

see why we should assert ourselves among other men as belonging to a

particular caste, and as being forbidden, in any harmless thing, to do

as other people do. The disciples of old set us no such example; they

were wiser and better than we are. I venture to say that one of the

worst obstacles in the way of our doing good among our fellow-creatures

is raised by the mere assumption of the clerical manner and the clerical

voice. For my part, I set up no claim to be more sacred and more

reverend than any other Christian man who does what good he can." He

glanced brightly at Mercy, looking at him in helpless perplexity. The

spirit of fun took possession of him again. "Are you a Radical?" he

asked, with a humorous twinkle in his large lustrous eyes. "I am!"

Mercy tried hard to understand him, and tried in vain. Could this be the

preacher whose words had charmed, purified, ennobled her? Was this the

man whose sermon had drawn tears from women about her whom she knew to

be shameless and hardened in crime? Yes! The eyes that now rested on her

humorously were the beautiful eyes which had once looked into her soul.

The voice that had just addressed a jesting question to her was the deep

and mellow voice which had once thrilled her to the heart. In the pulpit

he was an angel of mercy; out of the pulpit he was a boy let loose from

school.

"Don't let me startle you," he said, good-naturedly, noticing her

confusion. "Public opinion has called me by harder names than the name

of 'Radical.' I have been spending my time lately--as I told you just

now--in an agricultural district. My business there was to perform the

duty for the rector of the place, who wanted a holiday. How do you think

the experiment has ended? The Squire of the parish calls me a Communist;

the farmers denounce me as an Incendiary; my friend the rector has been

recalled in a hurry, and I have now the honor of speaking to you in the

character of a banished man who has made a respectable neighborhood too

hot to hold him."