eat element of refinement, that he thought
nothing honest beneath him.

It was the Friday of the entertainment, about one o'clock, and though
Mr. Moggridge had practically finished the work the day before, he had
slipped in during his lunch-hour to give it a final touch or two. He had
brought his lunch in the form of a pork-pie, and while with one hand he
plunged the pie occasionally among his red whiskers, with the other he
would lean forward and touch up a knot or a nail-hole that needed a
little more paint. And he was proud as a boy of the simple bit of
slap-dashing, and entirely absorbed in it and the pork-pie.

Presently he became aware that he was not alone. Someone had entered
the schoolroom at the far end. He turned round, with the paint-brush in
one hand and the pork-pie in the other, and became abashed, for a
beautiful lady had entered the room and was evidently about to make an
enquiry. The surreptitiousness that seems to inhere in pork-pies
prompted Mr. Moggridge to slip the pie into his trousers' pocket--for
his coat was off, and a white apron had taken its place.

"Just doing a little bit of amateur painting," he explained rather
awkwardly, advancing to the lady.

"So I see," said the lady, with a pleasant smile. "This, I believe, is
Zion Chapel--and I suppose this is the room where I am to recite. My
name is Isabel Strange, and I have come a little earlier, I daresay,
than you expected; but I always like to see the room I'm to recite
in--just to try my voice in and run over my pieces."

"Certainly, of course," said Mr. Moggridge; "but you have come all the
way from London and so early. You will have some refreshment first, and
if you'll honour Mrs. Moggridge and me--I may as well explain that I am
the chief deacon," said Mr. Moggridge, dexterously slipping off his
painter's apron and getting into his coat. So, with a wistful glance at
his work of art, Mr. Moggridge carried off the beautiful London lady to
Zion View.

But was Isabel Strange beautiful? It was a new sort of beauty if she
was--or perhaps a very old sort. Yet beautiful was the first word that
had sprung into Mr. Moggridge's mind as she had surprised him in the
schoolroom. Perhaps wonderful was the exacter word, wonderful in a way
that included beauty,--wonderful, and with a strange air about her that
suggested exceptional refinement, exquisite sensitiveness to
refined things.

"Beautiful, O dear no!" said Mrs. Moggridge, to whom femini