love
of domineering; his intolerance of opposition; the pride of his
exacting will. But on the first provocation of circumstances, these
traits stood boldly forth.

"Is it for this that I have spent my time and money upon you--to bring
up an INFIDEL?" Bishop Fairchilds demanded, when he had in part
recovered from the first shock of amazement the news had given him.

"I am not an infidel even if I have outgrown High Church dogmas. I have
a Faith--I have a Religion; and I assure you that I never so fully
realized the vital truth of my religion as I do now--now that I see
things, not in the dim cathedral light, but out under the broad
heavens!"

"How can you dare to question the authority of our Holy Mother, the
Church, whose teachings have come down to us through all these
centuries, bearing the sacred sanction of the most ancient authority?"

"Old things can rot!" Walter answered.

"And you fancy," the bishop indignantly demanded, "that I will give one
dollar for your support while you are adhering to this blasphemy? That
I will ever again even so much as break bread with you, until, in
humble contrition, you return to your allegiance to the Church?"

Walter lifted his earnest eyes and met squarely his uncle's frowning
stare. Then the boy rose.

"Nothing, then, is left for me," he said steadily, "but to leave your
home, give up the course of study I had hoped to continue at Harvard,
and get to work."

"You fully realize all that this step must mean?" his uncle coldly
asked him. "You are absolutely penniless."

"In a matter of this kind, uncle, you must realize that such a
consideration could not possibly enter in."

"You have not a penny of your own. The few thousands that your father
left were long ago used up in your school-bills."

"And I am much in your debt; I know it all."

"So you choose poverty and hardship for the sake of this perversity?"

"Others have suffered harder things for principle."

Thus they parted.

And thus it was, through the suddenness and unexpectedness of the loss
of his home and livelihood, that Walter Fairchilds came to apply for
the position at William Penn.

"HERE, Tillie, you take and go up to Sister Jennie Hershey's and get
some mush. I'm makin' fried mush fur supper," said Aunty Em, bustling
into the hotel kitchen where her niece was paring potatoes, one
Saturday afternoon. "Here's a quarter. Get two pound."

"Oh, Tillie," called her cousin Rebecca from the adjoinin