sermon.

"Here we have a flagrant example of what is nothing less than spiritual
miscegenation--that's it!--why didn't I think of that phrase
before--spiritual miscegenation. A rattle-brained boy, with the
connivance of a common magistrate, effects a certain kind of alliance
with a person inferior to him in every point of view--birth, breeding,
station, culture, wealth--a person, moreover, who will doubtless be glad
to relinquish her so-called rights for a sum of money. Can that, I ask
you, be called a _marriage?_ Can we suppose an all-wise God to have
joined two natures so ill-adapted, so mutually exclusive, so repellent
to each other after that first glamour is past. Really, such a
supposition is not only puerile but irreverent. It is the conventional
supposition, I grant, and theoretically, the unvarying supposition of
the Church; but God has given us reasoning powers to use fearlessly--not
to be kept superstitiously in the shackles of any tradition whatsoever.
Why, the very Church itself from its founding is an example of the
wisdom of violating tradition when it shall seem meet--it has always had
to do this."

"I see, Allan--every case must be judged by itself; every marriage
requires a special ruling--"

"Well--er--exactly--only don't get to fancying that you could solve
these problems. It's difficult enough for a priest."

"Oh, I'm positive a mere woman couldn't grapple with them--she hasn't
the mind to! All she is capable of is to choose who shall think for
her."

"And of course it would hardly do to announce that I had counselled a
certain procedure of divorce and re-marriage--no matter how flagrant the
abuse, nor how obvious the spiritual equity of the step. People at large
are so little analytical."

"'Flexible,' Mr. Browett told his sister you were. He was right--you
_are_ flexible, Allan--more so than I ever suspected."

"Nance--you _please_ me--you are a good girl. Now I'm going up to
Bernal. Bernal certainly pleases me. Of course I shall do the handsome
thing by him if he acts along the lines our talk has indicated."

She still sat in the falling dusk, in the chair she had taken two hours
before, when Aunt Bell came in, dressed for dinner.

"Mercy, child! Do you know how late it is?"

"What did you say, Aunt Bell?"

"I say do you know how late it is?"

"Oh--not too late!"

"Not too late--for what?"

There was a pause, then she said: "Aunt Bell, when a woman comes to make
her very last