ut
yourself, Grace?" and a singularly sad smile went with the query and a
side glance at his friend's face. He had been uneasy about him since
Grace had bent a little in the House of Rimmon.

"Oh, Rivers, the roof has got to leak. I have kept away from Mrs.
Penhallow. I can't accept her help and then preach against her party,
and--I mean to do it. I've wrestled with this little sin and--I don't say
I wasn't tempted--I was. Now I am clear. We Baptists can stand what water
leaks down on us from Heaven."

"You mean to preach politics, Grace?"

"Yes, that's what I mean to do. Oh! here comes Mrs. Penhallow."

They had met in front of Josiah's shop. As Mrs. Penhallow approached, Mr.
Grace discovering a suddenly remembered engagement hurried away, and
Rivers went with her along the rough sidewalk of Westways.

"I go away to-morrow with Leila," she said, "and Mr. Penhallow goes to
Pittsburgh. We shall leave John to you for at least a week. He will give
you no trouble. He has quite lost his foreign boyish ways, and don't you
think he is like my husband?"

"He is in some ways very like the Squire."

"Yes, in some things--I so rarely leave home that this journey to
Baltimore with Leila seems to me like foreign travel."

"Does Leila like it?"

"No, but it is time she was thrown among girls. She is less than she was
a mere wild boy. It is strange, Mark, that ever since John came she has
been less of a hoyden--and more of a simple girl."

"It is," he said, "a fine young nature in a strong body. She has the
promise of beauty--whatever that may be worth."

"Worth! It is worth a great deal," said Mrs. Ann. "It helps. The moral
value of beauty! Ah, Mark Rivers, I should like to discuss that with you.
She is at the ugly duck age. Now I must go home. I want you to look after
some things while I am away, and Mr. Penhallow is troubled about his pet
scamp, Lamb."

She went on with her details of what he was to do, until he said
laughing, "Please to put it on paper."

"I will. Not to leave John quite alone, I have arranged for you to dine
with him, and I suppose he will go to you in the mornings for his lessons
as usual."

"Oh, yes, of course. I enjoy these fellows, but the able ones are John
and Tom McGregor. Tom is in the rough as yet, but he will come out all
right. I shall lose him in a year. He is over seventeen and is to study
medicine. But what about Lamb?"

"I am wicked enough to wish he were really ill. It is only t