d our host are coming down
handsomely, eh? When we get the new settlement house we'll have a plant
as up-to-date as any church in the country. When do you break ground?"

"Not until autumn, I believe," Hodder replied. "There are a good many
details to decide upon yet."

"Well, I congratulate you."

Mr. Plimpton was forever congratulating.

"Up-to-date"--"plant"! More illuminating words, eloquent of Mr.
Plimpton's ideals. St. John's down at the heels, to be brought up to the
state of efficiency of Mr. Plimpton's trust company! It was by no means
the first time he had heard modern attributes on Mr. Plimpton's lips
applied to a sacred institution, but to-night they had a profoundly
disquieting effect. To-night, a certain clairvoyance had been vouchsafed
him, and he beheld these men, his associates and supporters, with a
detachment never before achieved.

They settled in groups about the room, which was square and high, and
panelled in Italian walnut, with fluted pilasters,--the capitals of which
were elaborately carved. And Hodder found himself on a deep leather sofa
in a corner engaged in a desultory and automatic conversation with
Everett Constable. Mr. Plimpton, with a large cigar between his lips,
was the radiating centre of one of the liveliest groups, and of him
the rector had fallen into a consideration, piecing together bits of
information that hitherto had floated meaninglessly in his mind.
It was Mrs. Larrabbee who had given character to the career of the still
comparatively youthful and unquestionably energetic president of the
Chamber of Commerce by likening it to a great spiral, starting somewhere
in outer regions of twilight, and gradually drawing nearer to the centre,
from which he had never taken his eyes. At the centre were Eldon Parr
and Charlotte Gore. Wallis Plimpton had made himself indispensable to
both.

His campaign for the daughter of Thurston Gore had been comparable to one
of the great sieges of history, for Mr. Plimpton was a laughing-stock
when he sat down before that fortress. At the end of ten years,
Charlotte had capitulated, with a sigh of relief, realizing at last her
destiny. She had become slightly stout, revealing, as time went on, no
wrinkles--a proof that the union was founded on something more enduring
than poetry: Statesmanship--that was the secret! Step by step, slowly
but surely, the memoranda in that matrimonial portfolio were growing
into accomplished facts; all events, s