his library. "Sit down, Mark," he said, "I am
rash to invite you; both you and Ann bore me to death with your Sunday
schools and the mill men who won't come to church. I don't hear our
Baptist friend complain."

"But he does," said Rivers.

"I do not wonder," said Ann, "that they will not attend the chapel."

"If," said Penhallow, "you were to swap pulpits, Mark, it would draw.
There are many ways--oh, I am quite in earnest, Ann. Don't put on one of
your excommunicating looks. I remember once in Idaho at dusk, I had two
guides. They were positive, each of them, that certain trails would lead
to the top. I tossed up which to go with. It was pretty serious--Indians
and so on--I'll tell you about it some time, rector. Well, we met at dawn
on the summit. How about the moral, Ann?"

Ann Penhallow laughed. In politics, morals and religion, she held
unchanging sentiments. "My dear James, people who make fables supply the
morals. I decline."

"Very good, but you see mine."

"I never see what I do not want to see," which was pretty close to the
truth.

"The fact is," said Rivers, "I have preaccepted the Squire's hint. Grace
is sick again. I tell him it is that last immersion business. I have
promised to preach for him next Sunday, as your young curate at the mills
wants to air his eloquence here."

"Not really!" said Mrs. Ann, "at his chapel?"

"Yes, and I mean to use a part of our service."

"If the Bishop knew it."

"If! he would possibly forbid it, or be glad I did it."

Mrs. Ann totally disapproved. She took up her knitting and said no more,
while Rivers and Penhallow talked of a disturbance at the works of no
great moment. The rector noticed Mrs. Penhallow's sudden loss of interest
in their talk and her failure to comment on his statement, an unusual
thing with this woman, who, busy-minded as the bee, gathered honey of
interest from most of the affairs of life. In a pause of the talk he
turned to her, "I am sorry to have annoyed you," he said--"I mean about
preaching for Grace."

"But why do you do it?"

"Because," he returned, "my Master bids me. Over and over one finds in
His Word that he foreknew how men would differ and come to worship Him
and use His revelations in ways which would depend on diversity of
temperaments, or under the leadership of individual minds of great force.
It may be that it was meant that we should disagree, and yet--I--yet
as to essentials we are one. That I never can forget."