CHAPTER XIV.
_ON_ the next morning, after some persuasion, Edith consented to postpone her visit to Grubb's court until after her father had seen Mr.
Paulding, the missionary.
"Let me go first and gain what information I can," he urged.

"It may save you a fruitless errand." It was not without a feeling of almost unconquerable repugnance that Mr.Dinneford took his way to the mission-house, in Briar street.

His tastes, his habits and his naturally kind and sensitive feelings all made him shrink from personal contact with suffering and degradation.
He gave much time and care to the good work of helping the poor and the wretched, but did his work in boards and on committees, rather than in the presence of the needy and suffering.

He was not one of those who would pass over to the other side and leave a wounded traveler to perish, but he would avoid the road to Jericho, if he thought it likely any such painful incident would meet him in the way and shock his fine sensibilities.

He was willing to work for the downcast, the wronged, the suffering and the vile, but preferred doing so at a distance, and not in immediate contact.