iently.

"What is it, Mr. Muir? Must your organist take the oath?"

The question caught him by surprise; it was uppermost in his thoughts,
this hateful theme; but then how should she know it? He lost the
self-possession he had been trying to maintain, the dignity of his
judicial character broke down completely; he was now merely a
kind-hearted man, a husband and father it is true, but for the moment
those domestic ties were not like a fetter on him.

"I require no such evidence of your loyalty, Mrs. Edgar," he said,--"no
evidence whatever."

"But--does not the church?"

This question was asked with a little faltering, asked for his sake; for
evidently some knowledge he had, and had to communicate, that
embarrassed him almost to the making of speech impossible.

"The church! No,--it is too late for that!"

And now he had thrown down the hateful truth. There it lay at the feet
of the woman who at this moment assumed to the preacher's imagination a
more than saint's virtue, a more than angel's beauty.

"What then?" she said. "What next, Mr. Muir? Do they want my
resignation?"

"Yes."

Mr. Muir said this with a humbled, deprecating gesture of the hand. At
the same time bowed his head.

"I commission you to carry it," she said.

"I will not," he answered, almost ferociously.

"Mr. Muir!"

"I consider it an outrage."

"No,--a misunderstanding."

That mild magnanimity of speech completed the overthrow of his
prudence.

"A misunderstanding, then, that shall be rectified to your honor," he
exclaimed, "in the very place where it has gained ground to your
dishonor. If you resign, Mrs. Edgar, it must be to come at once to my
house as a guest. If the people are infatuated, the minister need not be
of necessity. My wife will welcome you there; if the law of the gospel
cannot protect you from suspicion, it can at least from harm."

So all in a moment the man got the better of Mr. Muir. What a
deliverance was there! This was the man who had preached and prayed for
the Government till more than once he had been invited to march out with
the soldiers as their chaplain to battle, opening his doors to one whom
the loyal church rejected,--opening them merely because she was a woman
on whom suspicion he believed to be unjust had fallen.

Her face lighted, her eyes flashed, she smiled. These were precious
words to hear from any good man's lips. They broke on the air like balm
on a wound.

"Not for all the world wou