ardly condescend to receive our little
gratuity now?"

"I shall not require it, gentlemen."

"Of course we should never have offered you such a small sum, if we
hadn't known you were independent of us."

"Why then did you offer it at all?" asked the minister.

"As a token of our regard."

"The regard could not be very lively that made no inquiry as to our
circumstances. My daughter had twenty pounds a year; I had nothing. We
were in no small peril of simple starvation."

"Bless my soul! we hadn't an idea of such a thing, sir! Why didn't you
tell us?"

Mr. Drake smiled, and made no other reply.

"Well, sir," resumed Barwood, after a very brief pause, for he was a
man of magnificent assurance, "as it's all turned out so well, you'll
let bygones be bygones, and give us a hand?"

"I am obliged to you for calling," said Mr. Drake, "--especially to you,
Mr. Barwood, because it gives me an opportunity of confessing a fault of
omission on my part toward you."

Here the pastor was wrong. Not having done his duty when he ought, he
should have said nothing now it was needless for the wronged, and likely
only to irritate the wrong-doer.

"Don't mention it, pray," said Mr. Barwood. "This is a time to forget
every thing."

"I ought to have pointed out to you, Mr. Barwood," pursued the minister,
"both for your own sake and that of those poor families, your tenants,
that your property in this lower part of the town was quite unfit for
the habitation of human beings."

"Don't let your conscience trouble you on the score of that neglect,"
answered the deacon, his face flushing with anger, while he tried to
force a smile: "I shouldn't have paid the least attention to it if you
had. My firm opinion has always been that a minister's duty is to preach
the gospel, not meddle in the private affairs of the members of his
church; and if you knew all, Mr. Drake, you would not have gone out of
your way to make the remark. But that's neither here nor there, for it's
not the business as we've come upon.--Mr. Drake, it's a clear thing to
every one as looks into it, that the cause will never prosper so long as
that's the chapel we've got. We did think as perhaps a younger man might
do something to counteract church-influences; but there don't seem any
sign of betterment yet. In fact, thinks looks worse. No, sir! it's the
chapel as is the stumbling-block. What has religion got to do with
what's ugly and dirty! A place that any lady or