d even some who were not,
stopped him in Main Street and State Street to "shake" and to say,
without too much care for logical sequence, how soon, in their opinion,
he would be the commonwealth's "favorite son."

"My dear Mrs. Morris," said the General, "every town has at least one."
But even Mrs. Morris could see the father's faith and pride through the
old soldier's satire.

X

THE STORM REGATHERS

On the other hand, things were going ill with the little church of All
Angels. Arthur kept his people as tensely strung as ever, but he no
longer drew from them the chords of aspiration and enterprise. It was a
sad disenchantment, and none the less so because no one seemed to know
what the matter was. One darkly guessed he was writing a book, and the
vestryman who had praised the lovely simplicity of the wedding lucidly
explained that the young rector had "lost his grip."

At times there were flashes of recovery. One Sabbath the whole
congregation came out under his benediction uplifted by his word that
"loving is living."

"The more we love," they quoted him on their various ways home, "the
more we live. The deeper we love, the deeper we live. The more selfishly
or unselfishly, the higher, the broader, the purer, the wiser, we love,
the more selfishly or unselfishly, the higher, the broader, the purer,
the wiser, we live!" The rector's gentle wife was visibly and ever so
prettily rejoiced.

True, but hardly the whole truth. In her mother's cottage her smiles
were almost sad, and when she had crossed the garden and got into her
own room she dropped upon her bed and wept. Yet she quickly ceased, and
put on again a brave serenity, for a very tender reason which forbade
such risks.

A bunch of the church's best men got together and agreed that all Arthur
needed was rest; that this bright moment was the right one in which to
offer him a vacation; that his physician should flatly order him to take
it; and that Byington should arrange the matter.

Leonard accepted the task, the physician spoke with startling flatness,
and the whole kind plot worked well. Arthur consented to go away up into
the hills beyond all the jar of the busy world's unrest.

Isabel was to go with him, and they were to sojourn at some point where
she would still be within prompt reach of medical skill, yet from which
he could make long jaunts into the absolute wilds.

Mrs. Morris was far from well when they left, and the day afterward sh