she begged, "it's really serious--and no one knows
it yet. He said I might tell you. Do you remember that talk we had at
father's, when he first came, and we likened him to a modern Savonarola?"

"And George Bridges took the floor, and shocked mother and Lucy and
Laureston," supplied Phil.

"I don't believe mother really was as much shocked as she appeared to
be," said Eleanor. "At any rate, the thing that had struck us--you and
me--was that Mr. Hodder looked as though he could say something helpful,
if he only would. And then I went to see him afterwards, in the parish
house--you remember?--after we had been reading modern criticism
together, and he told me that the faith which had come down from the
fathers was like an egg? It couldn't be chipped. I was awfully
disappointed--and yet I couldn't help liking him, he was so honest.
And the theological books he gave me to read--which were so mediaeval
and absurd! Well, he has come around to our point of view. He told
me so himself."

"But what is our point of view, Nell?" her husband asked, with a smile.
"Isn't it a good deal like Professor Bridges', only we're not quite so
learned? We're just ordinary heathens, as far as I can make out. If
Hodder has our point of view, he ought to go into the law or a trust
company."

"Oh, Phil!" she protested, "and you're on the vestry! I do believe in
Something, and so do you."

"Something," he observed, "is hardly a concrete and complete theology."

"Why do you make me laugh," she reproached him, "when the matter is so
serious? What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm sure Mr. Hodder has
worked it out. He's too sincere to remain in the Church and not have
something constructive and satisfying. I've always said that he seemed
to have a truth shut up inside of him which he could not communicate.
Well, now he looks as though he were about to communicate it, as though
he had discovered it. I suppose you think me silly, but you'll grant,
whatever Mr. Hodder may be, he isn't silly. And women can feel these
things. You know I'm not given to sentimentality, but I was never so
impressed by the growth in any personality as I was this morning by his.
He seems to have become himself, as I always imagined him. And, Phil, he
was so fine! He's absolutely incapable of posing, as you'll admit, and
he stood right up and acknowledged that he'd been wrong in our argument.
He hasn't had the services all summer, and when he resumes them next
Sunday I