umbled
nervously in his pocket and drew out his glasses. These he poised upon
the ample arch of his ecclesiastical nose, and through them turned a
penetrating glance upon the girl.

"H'm! yes," said he at length; "quite so, quite so! And--ah--Miss
Carmen, that brings us to the matter in question--your religious
instruction--ah--may I ask from whom you received it?"

"From God," was the immediate and frank reply.

The clergyman started, but quickly recovered his equipoise.

"H'm! yes, quite so, quite so! All real instruction descendeth
from above. But--your religious views--I believe they are not
considered--ah--quite evangelical, are they? By your present
associates, that is."

"No," she replied, with a trace of sadness in her tone. "But," looking
up with a queer little smile, "I am not persecuting them for that."

"Oh, no," with a jerky little laugh. "Assuredly not! H'm! I judge the
persecution has come from the other side, has it not?"

"We will not speak of that," she said quickly. "They do not
understand--that is all."

"H'm! no, quite so--that is--ah--may I ask why you think they do not
understand? May not you be in error, instead?"

"If that which I believe is not true," the girl replied evenly, "it
will fail under the test of demonstration. Their beliefs have long
since failed under such test--and yet they still cling jealously to
them, and try to force them upon all who disagree with them. I am a
heretic, Doctor."

"H'm--ah--yes, I see. But--it is a quite unfortunate characteristic
of mankind to attribute one's views indiscriminately to the
Almighty--and--ah--I regret to note that you are not wholly free from
this error."

"You do not understand, I think," she quickly returned. "I put every
view, every thought, every idea to the test. If good is the result, I
know that the thought or idea comes from the source of all good, God.
The views I hold are those which I have time and again tested--and
some of them have withstood trials which I think you would regard as
unusually severe." Her thought had rested momentarily upon her vivid
experience in Banco, the dangers which had menaced her in distant
Simiti, and the fire through which she had passed in her first hours
in Christian America, the land of churches, sects, and creeds.

"H'm!" the worthy doctor mused, regarding the girl first through his
spectacles, and then over the tops of them, while his bushy eyebrows
moved up and down with such comicalit