t for them as a body of devoted men.'

The look of battle faded from the woman's face. It was not an
unpleasant face. He even saw strange reminiscences of Catherine in it at
times.

'You're aboot right there, sir. Not that they dare take any credit to
themselves--it's grace, sir, all grace.'

'Aunt Ellen,' said Catherine, while a sudden light broke over her face;
'I just want you to take Edward a little story from me. Ministers are
good things, but God can do without them.'

And she laid her hand on her aunt's knee with a smile in which there was
the slightest touch of affectionate satire.

'I was up among the fells the other day,' she went on; 'I met an elderly
man cutting wood in a plantation, and I stopped and asked him how he
was. "Ah, miss," he said, "verra weel, verra weel. And yet it was nobbut
Friday morning lasst, I cam oop here, awfu' bad in my sperrits like. For
my wife she's sick, an' a' dwinnelt away, and I'm gettin' auld, and
can't wark as I'd used to, and it did luke to me as thoo there was
naethin' afore us nobbut t' Union. And t' mist war low on t' fells, and
I sat oonder t' wall, wettish and broodin' like. And theer--all ov a
soodent the Lord found me! Yes, puir Reuben Judge, as dawn't matter to
naebody, the Lord found un. It war leyke as thoo His feeace cam
a-glisterin' an' a-shinin' through t' mist. An' iver sence then, miss,
aa've jest felt as thoo aa could a' cut an' stackt all t' wood on t'
fell in naw time at a'!" And he waved his hand round the mountain side
which was covered with plantation. And all the way along the path for
ever so long I could hear him singing, chopping away, and quavering out,
"Rock of Ages."'

She paused, her delicate face, with just a little quiver in the lip,
turned to her aunt, her eyes glowing as though a hidden fire had leapt
suddenly outward. And yet the gesture, the attitude, was simplicity and
unconsciousness itself. Robert had never heard her say anything so
intimate before. Nor had he ever seen her so inspired, so beautiful. She
had transmuted the conversation at a touch. It had been barbarous prose;
she had turned it into purest poetry. Only the noblest souls have such
an alchemy as this at command, thought the watcher on the other side of
the room with a passionate reverence.

'I wasn't thinkin' of narrowin' the Lord down to ministers,' said Mrs.
Fleming, with a certain loftiness. 'We all know He can do without us
puir worms.'

Then, seeing that no on