ones, 'Tak' your Bible an' come awa' mon!' Was not all this a
splendid testimony to the power of principle and the sacred demands of
conscience?" I said "Yea" most heartily, for the spirit of Jenny
Geddes stirred within me that morning, and under the spell of the
Friar's kindling eye and eloquent voice I positively gloried in the
valiant achievements of the Free Church. It would always be easier for
a woman to say "Yea" than "Nay" to the Friar. When he left me in
Breadalbane Terrace I was at heart a member of his congregation in
good (and irregular) standing, ready to teach in his Sunday-school,
sing in his choir, visit his aged and sick poor, and especially to
stand between him and a too admiring feminine constituency.

When I entered the drawing-room, I found that Salemina had just
enjoyed an hour's conversation with the ex-Moderator of the opposite
church wing.

"Oh, my dear," she sighed, "you have missed such a treat! You have no
conception of these Scottish ministers of the Establishment,--such
culture, such courtliness of manner, such scholarship, such
spirituality, such wise benignity of opinion! I asked the doctor
to explain the Disruption movement to me, and he was most interesting
and lucid, and most affecting, too, when he described the
misunderstandings and misconceptions that the Church suffered in those
terrible days of 1843, when its very life-blood, as well as its
integrity and unity, was threatened by the foes in its own
household; when breaches of faith and trust occurred on all sides,
and dissents and disloyalties shook it to its very foundation! You
see, Penelope, I have never fully understood the disagreements
about heritors and livings and state control before, but here is the
whole matter in a nut-sh--"

"My dear Salemina," I interposed, with dignity, "you will pardon me, I
am sure, when I tell you that any discussion on this point would be
intensely painful to me, as I now belong to the Free Kirk."

"Where have you been this morning?" she asked, with a piercing
glance.

"To St. Andrew's and Tanfield Hall."

"With whom?"

"With the Friar."

"I see! Happy the missionary to whom you incline your ear,
_first_!"--which I thought rather inconsistent of Salemina, as she had
been converted by precisely the same methods and in precisely the same
length of time as had I, the only difference being in the ages of our
respective missionaries, one being about five and thirty, the other
five and six