ly going to Beech Street Church this evening?"

"Yes, really," he said, with that genial smile I was beginning to regard
like a caress.

Mrs. Flaxman and I hastened to our rooms; she nearly as well pleased as
I. It seemed quite too good to be true that we three were to go in
company to those meetings where men and women talked to each other, and
to God, of all the great things He was doing for them. I was very
speedily robed and back in the drawing-room, where Mr. Winthrop was still
sitting gazing into the fire with that indrawn, abstracted expression on
his face which was habitual to it in repose. I waited silently near until
Mrs. Flaxman should come in and interrupt his reverie. I liked to watch
his face in those rare moments, and used to speculate on what he might
be thinking, and wishing my own thoughts were high and strong enough to
follow his on their long upward flight.

He looked at me suddenly.

"What, if I could read your thoughts now, Medoline? From your intent look
I think I was the subject of your meditations." I smiled calmly.

"You would have been flattered, as you were this morning, perhaps. I was
just wishing I was capable of going with you along those high paths
where, by your face, I knew you were straying."

"Was that what you were thinking about, and that only?"

My face crimsoned, but I looked up bravely into the honest eyes watching
me.

"Must I confess even my thoughts to you, Mr. Winthrop? I have had to ask
that question before?"

"Not necessarily. But I have a fancy just now to know what else you were
thinking of."

I hesitated a moment, and then said bravely: "I was looking at your face,
and it occurred to me that in some faces there was the same power to
thrill one's soul that there is in splendid music, or poems that can
never die."

"You were in a very imaginative and sentimental mood to trace such
analogies. It is not wise to see so much in a common human face."

"Do we not sometimes get glimpses of God in that way?" I asked.

"Are you always thinking such high thoughts, Medoline?"

"Oh, no, indeed. When I have nothing to inspire them, my thoughts are
very commonplace. The brook cannot rise higher than its source; it needs
artificial help to scale mountain tops."

He looked at me kindly as he said: "You are not fashioned after the
regulation models of the woman of to-day."

"I think I have heard that idea expressed in varying phrases a good many
times since I came to Am