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against the dissuading arguments of my best friends. Even when I
was taken to have a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to
make them like a kind of Reformatory, and on no account to let me
have the free use of my limbs.

Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a moving
spectacle for compassionate minds. Yet, what I suffered outside,
was nothing to what I underwent within. The terrors that had
assailed me whenever Mrs. Joe had gone near the pantry, or out of
the room, were only to be equalled by the remorse with which my
mind dwelt on what my hands had done. Under the weight of my wicked
secret, I pondered whether the Church would be powerful enough to
shield me from the vengeance of the terrible young man, if I
divulged to that establishment. I conceived the idea that the time
when the banns were read and when the clergyman said, "Ye are now
to declare it!" would be the time for me to rise and propose a
private conference in the vestry. I am far from being sure that I
might not have astonished our small congregation by resorting to
this extreme measure, but for its being Christmas Day and no
Sunday.

Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us; and Mr. Hubble
the wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe's uncle,
but Mrs. Joe appropriated him), who was a well-to-do corn-chandler
in the nearest town, and drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour
was half-past one. When Joe and I got home, we found the table
laid, and Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the front
door unlocked (it never was at any other time) for the company to
enter by, and everything most splendid. And still, not a word of
the robbery.

The time came, without bringing with it any relief to my feelings,
and the company came. Mr. Wopsle, united to a Roman nose and a
large shining bald forehead, had a deep voice which he was
uncommonly proud of; indeed it was understood among his
acquaintance that if you could only give him his head, he would
read the clergyman into fits; he himself confessed that if the
Church was "thrown open," meaning to competition, he would not
despair of making his mark in it. The Church not being "thrown
open," he was, as I have said, our clerk. But he punished the
Amens tremendously; and when he gave out the psalm - always giving
the whole verse - he looked all round the congregation first, as
much as to say, "You have heard my friend overhead; oblige me with
your opinion of this style!"

I opened the door to the company - making believe that it was a
habit of ours to open that door - and I opened it first to Mr.
Wopsle, next to Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and last of all to Uncle
Pumblechook. N.B., I was not allowed to call him uncle, under the
severest penalties.

"Mrs. Joe," said Uncle Pumblechook: a large hard-breathing
middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes,
and sandy hair standing upright on his head, so that he looked as
if he had just been all but choked, and had that moment come to;

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