just become
a minister himself. They got married, and went away--and I--somehow I
never took up my membership when the six months' probation was over.
That's how it was."

"It is very interesting," remarked Theron, softly, after a little
silence--"and very full of human nature."

"Well, now you see," said the lawyer, "what I mean when I say that there
hasn't been another minister here since, that I should have felt like
telling this story to. They wouldn't have understood it at all. They
would have thought it was blasphemy for me to say straight out that
what I took for experiencing religion was really a girl. But you are
different. I felt that at once, the first time I saw you. In a pulpit or
out of it, what I like in a human being is that he SHOULD be human."

"It pleases me beyond measure that you should like me, then" returned
the young minister, with frank gratification shining on his face. "The
world is made all the sweeter and more lovable by these--these elements
of romance. I am not one of those who would wish to see them banished or
frowned upon. I don't mind admitting to you that there is a good deal in
Methodism--I mean the strict practice of its letter which you find here
in Octavius--that is personally distasteful to me. I read the other day
of an English bishop who said boldly, publicly, that no modern nation
could practise the principles laid down in the Sermon on the Mount and
survive for twenty-four hours."

"Ha, ha! That's good!" laughed the lawyer.

"I felt that it was good, too," pursued Theron. "I am getting to see
a great many things differently, here in Octavius. Our Methodist
Discipline is like the Beatitudes--very helpful and beautiful, if
treated as spiritual suggestion, but more or less of a stumbling-block
if insisted upon literally. I declare!" he added, sitting up in his
chair, "I never talked like this to a living soul before in all my life.
Your confidences were contagious."

The Rev. Mr. Ware rose as he spoke, and took up his hat.

"Must you be going?" asked the lawyer, also rising. "Well, I'm glad I
haven't shocked you. Come in oftener when you are passing. And if you
see anything I can help you in, always tell me."

The two men shook hands, with an emphatic and lingering clasp.

"I am glad," said Theron, "that you didn't stop coming to church just
because you lost the girl."

Levi Gorringe answered the minister's pleasantry with a smile which
curled his mustache upward, an