ntered.

The drive was all too brief, but later in the evening, when good-night
had been spoken to the rest of the household, the two men sat in the
unlighted veranda and talked until midnight of Christ and the matters
of His realm.

The _tout ensemble_ of the company gathered to hear Mr. Bond's first
lecture was somewhat curious. It was not a large congregation, but it
was representative, being drawn from the interested or curious of
nearly every kind of church or religious coterie in the city. Keen
Bible students were there, notebooks in hand, prepared to capture any
new suggestion which might help them. The critical were there,
representing various shades of belief and prejudice, from the quiet
repressionist, who, disdaining emotion, views with dispassionate
coldness the great tenets of the faith, to the irrepressible enthusiast
whose spiritual understanding is often lost beneath a foam of feeling;
from the instructed brother who reads his title clear with logical
accuracy in the Scriptures and glories in his standing with belieing
indifference to his state, to the anxious soul whose hope of heaven
veers with every changing wind of fitful emotion. Each critic was bent
on discovering if the stranger would hew faithfully to the line of his
own demarcation.

There were Mr. Selton's friends, people of his own station, who
responded to his personal invitation to come, prepared to listen
courteously, to express polite thanks at the end for the pleasure
conferred, and, for the most part, to find various lions in the way of
attending again, profound as were their regrets!

Mr. Gray and Hubert both succeeded in getting the hour away from
business, and the latter arrived at the hall just as his mother, with
Winifred and Adele, was entering and joined them. Adele formed a
singular figure in the midst of the assembly. No thought of unusual
sobriety had toned down her usually stylish and somewhat striking
costume, and a large red hat of the milliner's finest skill shaded
becomingly her piquant face. Her keen, merry eyes studied the
congregation, and she could not resist whispering a few impressions to
Winifred before the lecture began.

"Isn't this a funny crowd?" she asked. "Such a combination! Look at
that meek little body in the front row and the fat dowager behind her.
And do see that anarchist-looking man at the side who is looking at Mr.
Bond as though he would eat him up. Do you know who he is? I hope he