All were silent for a few moments, then Sylvia said-- 'How good she is!' And Philip replied with ready warmth,-- 'Yes, she is; no one knows how good but us, who live in the same house wi' her.' 'Her mother is an old Quakeress, bean't she ?' Molly inquired.
'Alice Rose is a Friend, if that is what you mean,' said Philip.
'Well, well! some folk's so particular.

Is William Coulson a Quaker, by which a mean a Friend ?' 'Yes; they're all on 'em right-down good folk.' 'Deary me! What a wonder yo' can speak to such sinners as Sylvia and me, after keepin' company with so much goodness,' said Molly, who had not yet forgiven Philip for doubting Kinraid's power of killing men.

'Is na' it, Sylvia ?' But Sylvia was too highly strung for banter.

If she had not been one of those who went to mock, but remained to pray, she had gone to church with the thought of the cloak-that-was-to-be uppermost in her mind, and she had come down the long church stair with life and death suddenly become real to her mind, the enduring sea and hills forming a contrasting background to the vanishing away of man.

She was full of a solemn wonder as to the abiding-place of the souls of the dead, and a childlike dread lest the number of the elect should be accomplished before she was included therein.