The stranger insisted on
making Mr. Godfrey precede him; Mr. Godfrey said a few civil words; they
bowed, and parted in the street.
Thoughtless and superficial people may say, Here is surely a very
trumpery little incident related in an absurdly circumstantial manner.
Oh, my young friends and fellow-sinners! beware of presuming to exercise
your poor carnal reason. Oh, be morally tidy. Let your faith be as your
stockings, and your stockings as your faith. Both ever spotless, and
both ready to put on at a moment's notice!
I beg a thousand pardons. I have fallen insensibly into my Sunday-school
style. Most inappropriate in such a record as this. Let me try to be
worldly--let me say that trifles, in this case as in many others, led
to terrible results. Merely premising that the polite stranger was Mr.
Luker, of Lambeth, we will now follow Mr. Godfrey home to his residence
at Kilburn.
He found waiting for him, in the hall, a poorly clad but delicate and
interesting-looking little boy. The boy handed him a letter, merely
mentioning that he had been entrusted with it by an old lady whom he did
not know, and who had given him no instructions to wait for an answer.
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