d wondering girls. Suppose one of them had been in her
position! 'Should I have been turning my face away, like the rest? I
wouldn't no, I wouldn't,' she thought; 'I should have understood!' But
she knew there was a kind of false emphasis in her thought.
Instinctively she felt the painter right. One who acted differently from
others, was lost.

She told her father of the encounter, adding:

"I expect he'll come, Daddy."

Pierson answered dreamily: "Poor fellow, I shall be glad to see him if he
does."

"And you'll sit to him, won't you?"

"My dear--I?"

"He's lonely, you know, and people aren't nice to him. Isn't it hateful
that people should hurt others, because they're foreign or different?"

She saw his eyes open with mild surprise, and went on: "I know you think
people are charitable, Daddy, but they aren't, of course."

"That's not exactly charitable, Nollie."

"You know they're not. I think sin often just means doing things
differently. It's not real sin when it only hurts yourself; but that
doesn't prevent people condemning you, does it?"

"I don't know what you mean, Nollie."

Noel bit her lips, and murmured: "Are you sure we're really Christians,
Daddy?"

The question was so startling, from his own daughter, that Pierson took
refuge in an attempt at wit. "I should like notice of that question,
Nollie, as they say in Parliament."

"That means you don't."

Pierson flushed. "We're fallible enough; but, don't get such ideas into
your head, my child. There's a lot of rebellious talk and writing in
these days...."

Noel clasped her hands behind her head. "I think," she said, looking
straight before her, and speaking to the air, "that Christianity is what
you do, not what you think or say. And I don't believe people can be
Christians when they act like others--I mean, when they join together to
judge and hurt people."

Pierson rose and paced the room. "You have not seen enough of life to
talk like that," he said. But Noel went on:

"One of the men in her hospital told Gratian about the treatment of
conscientious objectors--it was horrible. Why do they treat them like
that, just because they disagree? Captain Fort says it's fear which
makes people bullies. But how can it be fear when they're hundreds to
one? He says man has domesticated his animals but has never succeeded in
domesticating himself. Man must be a wild beast, you know, or the world
couldn't be so awfully brutal. I