A Visit From the Counsellor

Now while I was riding home that evening, with a tender conscience about Ruth, although not a wounded one, I guessed but little that all my thoughts were needed much for my own affairs. So however it proved to be; for as I came in, soon after dark, my sister Eliza met me at the corner of the cheese-room, and she said, 'Don't go in there, John,' pointing to mother's room; 'until I have had a talk with you.'

'In the name of Moses,' I inquired, having picked up that phrase at Dulverton; 'what are you at about me now? There is no peace for a quiet fellow.'

'It is nothing we are at,' she answered; 'neither may you make light of it. It is something very important about Mistress Lorna Doone.'

'Let us have it at once,' I cried; 'I can bear anything about Lorna, except that she does not care for me.'

'It has nothing to do with that, John. And I am quite sure that you never need fear anything of that sort. She perfectly wearies me sometimes, although her voice is so soft and sweet, about your endless perfections.'

'Bless her little heart!' I said; 'the subject is inexhaustible.'

'No doubt,' replied Lizzie, in the driest manner; 'especially to your sisters. However this is no time to joke. I fear you will get the worst of it, John. Do you know a man of about Gwenny's shape, nearly as broad as he is long, but about six times the size of Gwenny, and with a length of snow-white hair, and a thickness also; as the copses were last winter. He never can comb it, that is quite certain, with any comb yet invented.'