but one of her father's
followers. Yet the words saddened Him too. He just caught a glimpse
through them of life viewed from a directly opposite point.

"Your father has a lawsuit going on now, has he not?" he observed, after
a little pause.

"Oh, yes, there is almost always one either looming in the distance or
actually going on. I don't think I can ever remember the time when we
were quite free. It must feel very funny to have no worries of that
kind. I think, if there wasn't always this great load of debt tied round
our necks, like a millstone, I should feel almost light enough to fly.
And then it IS hard to read in some of those horrid religious papers
that father lives an easy-going life. Did you see a dreadful paragraph
last week in the 'Church Chronicle?'"

"Yes, I did," said Charles Osmond, sadly.

"It always has been the same," said Erica. "Father has a delightful
story about an old gentleman who at one of his lectures accused him of
being rich and self-indulgent--it was a great many years ago, when I was
a baby, and father was nearly killing himself with overwork--and he just
got up and gave the people the whole history of his day, and it turned
out that he had had nothing to eat. Mustn't the old gentleman have felt
delightfully done? I always wonder how he looked when he heard about
it, and whether after that he believed that atheists are not necessarily
everything that's bad."

"I hope such days as those are over for Mr. Raeburn," said Charles
Osmond, touched both by the anecdote and by the loving admiration of the
speaker.

"I don't know," said Erica, sadly. "It has been getting steadily worse
for the last few years; we have had to give up thing after thing. Before
long I shouldn't wonder if these rooms in what father calls 'Persecution
alley' grew too expensive for us. But, after all, it is this sort of
thing which makes our own people love him so much, don't you think?"

"I have no doubt it is," said Charles Osmond, thoughtfully.

And then for a minute or two there was silence. Erica, having finished
her toasting, stirred the fire into a blaze, and Charles Osmond sat
watching the fair, childish face which looked lovelier than ever in the
soft glow of the fire light. What would her future be, he wondered. She
seemed too delicate and sensitive for the stormy atmosphere in which she
lived. Would the hard life embitter her, or would she sink under it?
But there was a certain curve of resoluteness ab