ane-Smith winced a
little.

"The cases are different," he suggested.

"Do you think atheists don't love their children as much as Christians?"
cried Erica, half choked with indignant anger. A vision of the past,
of her dead mother, of her father's never-failing tenderness brought
a cloud of tears to her eyes. She brushed them away. "The cases are
different, as you say; but does a man care less for his home, when
outside it he is badgered and insulted, or does he care infinitely more?
Does a man care less for his child because, to get her food, he has had
to go short himself, or does he care more? I think the man who has had
to toil with all his might for his family loves it better than the rich
man can. You say I speak with too much warmth, too much feeling. My
complaint is the other way I can't find words strong enough to give you
any idea of what my father has always been to me. To leave him would be
to wrong my conscience, and to forsake my duty; and to distrust God. I
will NEVER leave him!"

With that she got up and left the room, and Mr. Fane-Smith leaned back
in his chair with a sigh, his eyes fixed absently upon a portrait of
Napoleon above his mantel piece, his mind more completely shaken out of
its ordinary grooves than it had been for years. He was a narrow-minded
man, but he was honest. He saw that he had judged Raeburn very unfairly.
But perhaps what occupied his thoughts the most was the question
"Would Rose have been able to say of him all that Erica had said of her
father?" He sighed many times, but after awhile slid back into the old
habits of thought.

"Erica is a brave, noble, little thing," he said to himself, "but far
from orthodox far from orthodox! Socinian tendencies."

CHAPTER XXVII. At Oak Dene Manor

Ah! To how many faith has been
No evidence of things unseen,
But a dim shadow that recasts the creed of the Phantasiasts.

* * * *

For others a diviner creed
Is living in the life they lead.
The passing of their beautiful feet
Blesses the pavement of the street,
And all their looks and words repeat
Old Fuller's saying wise and sweet,
Not as a vulture, but a dove,
The Holy Ghost came from above.

Tales of a Wayside Inn. Longfellow

During the interview Erica had braced herself up to endure, but when
it was over her strength all at once evaporated. She dragged herself
upstairs somehow, and had just reached he