this course of life, referred
with a touch of self-righteousness to the dwellers on the River Drive as
deserving reprobation on account of a lack of serious purpose. This
criticism appealed to Selma, and consoled her in a measure for the half
mortification with which she had begun to realize that she was not of so
much account as she had expected; at least, that there were people not
very far distant from her block who were different somehow from her
neighbors, and who took part in social proceedings in which she and her
husband were not invited to participate. Manifestly they were unworthy
and un-American. It was a comfort to come to this conclusion, even
though her immediate surroundings, including the society of those who
had put the taunt into her thoughts, left her unsatisfied.

Some relief was provided at last by her church. Babcock was by birth an
Episcopalian, though he had been lax in his interest during early
manhood. This was one of the matters which he had expected marriage to
correct, and he had taken up again, not merely with resignation but
complacency, the custom of attending service regularly. Dr. White had
been a controversial Methodist, but since his wife's death, and
especially since the war, he had abstained from religious observances,
and had argued himself somewhat far afield from the fold of orthodox
belief. Consequently Selma, though she attended church at Westfield when
her father's ailments did not require her presence at home, had been
brought up to exercise her faculties freely on problems of faith and to
feel herself a little more enlightened than the conventional worshipper.
Still she was not averse to following her husband to the Rev. Henry
Glynn's church. The experience was another revelation to her, for
service at Westfield had been eminently severe and unadorned. Mr. Glynn
was an Englishman; a short, stout, strenuous member of the Church of
England with a broad accent and a predilection for ritual, but
enthusiastic and earnest. He had been tempted to cross the ocean by the
opportunities for preaching the gospel to the heathen, and he had fixed
on Benham as a vineyard where he could labor to advantage. His advent
had been a success. He had awakened interest by his fervor and by his
methods. The pew taken by Babcock was one of the last remaining, and
there was already talk of building a larger church to replace the chapel
where he ministered. Choir boys, elaborate vestments, and genuflec