' your Bible and
come awa', mon!' Was not all this a splendid testimony to the power
of principle and the sacred demands of conscience?" I said "Yea" most
heartily, for the spirit of Jenny Geddes stirred within me that morning,
and under the spell of the Friar's kindling eye and eloquent voice I
positively gloried in the valiant achievements of the Free Church.
It would always be easier for a woman to say, "Yea" than "Nay" to the
Friar. When he left me in Breadalbane Terrace I was at heart a member of
his congregation in good (and irregular) standing, ready to teach in
his Sunday-school, sing in his choir, visit his aged and sick poor,
and especially to stand between him and a too admiring feminine
constituency.

When I entered the drawing-room, I found that Salemina had just enjoyed
an hour's conversation with the ex-Moderator of the opposite church
wing.

"Oh, my dear," she sighed, "you have missed such a treat! You have
no conception of these Scottish ministers of the Establishment,--such
culture, such courtliness of manner, such scholarship, such
spirituality, such wise benignity of opinion! I asked the doctor to
explain the Disruption movement to me, and he was most interesting and
lucid, and most affecting, too, when he described the misunderstandings
and misconceptions that the Church suffered in those terrible days of
1843, when its very life-blood, as well as its integrity and unity, were
threatened by the foes in its own household; when breaches of faith and
trust occurred on all sides, and dissents and disloyalties shook it to
its very foundation! You see, Penelope, I have never fully understood
the disagreements about heritors and livings and state control before,
but here is the whole matter in a nut-sh--"

"My dear Salemina," I interposed, with dignity, "you will pardon me,
I am sure, when I tell you that any discussion on this point would be
intensely painful to me, as I now belong to the Free Kirk."

"Where have you been this morning?" she asked, with a piercing glance.

"To St. Andrew's and Tanfield Hall."

"With whom?"

"With the Friar."

"I see! Happy the missionary to whom you incline your ear,
FIRST!"--which I thought rather inconsistent of Salemina, as she had
been converted by precisely the same methods and in precisely the same
length of time as had I, the only difference being in the ages of our
respective missionaries, one being about five-and-thirty, and other
five-and-sixty. Even t