d talking. I could hear it away out in the
kitchen."

"Well, you know, Sarah, the more indignant I get the less inclined I
feel to 'holler.' It was Mr. Winter you heard. He was very much excited
when he came, and nothing that I could conscientiously say would have
made any difference with him."

"Did you ask him to pray over the matter with you?"

"No. I do not think he was in a praying mood."

"Were you?"

Philip hesitated a moment, and then replied seriously: "Yes, I truly
believe I was--that is, I should not have been ashamed at any part of
the interview to put myself into loving communion with my Heavenly
Father."

Mrs. Strong still looked disturbed and anxious. She was going over in
her mind the probable result of Mr. Winter's antagonism to the minister.
It looked to her like a very serious thing. Philip was inclined to treat
the affair with calm philosophy, based on the knowledge that his
conscience was clear of all fault in the matter.

"What do you suppose Mr. Winter will do?" Mrs. Strong asked.

"He threatened to withdraw his financial support, and said other paying
members would do the same."

"Do you think they will?"

"I don't know. I shouldn't wonder if they do."

"What will you do then? It will be dreadful to have a disturbance in the
church of this kind, Philip; it will ruin your prospects here. You will
not be able to work under all that friction."

And the minister's wife suddenly broke down and had a good cry; while
Philip comforted her, first by saying two or three funny things, and
secondly by asserting, with a positive cheerfulness which was peculiar
to him when he was hard pressed, that, even if the church withdrew all
support, he (Philip) could probably get a job somewhere on a railroad,
or in a hotel, where there was always a demand for porters who could
walk up several flights of stairs with a good-sized trunk.

"Sometimes I almost think I missed my calling," said Philip, purposely
talking about himself in order to make his wife come to the defense. "I
ought to have been a locomotive fireman."

"The idea, Philip Strong! A man who has the gift of reaching people with
preaching the way you do!"

"The way I reach Mr. Winter, for example!"

"Yes," said his wife, "the way you reach him. Why, the very fact that
you made such a man angry is pretty good proof that you reached him.
Such men are not touched by any ordinary preaching."

"So you really think I have a little gift at pre