aching?" asked Philip,
slyly.

"A little gift! It is a great deal more than a little, Philip."

"Aren't you a little prejudiced, Sarah?"

"No, sir. I am the severest critic you ever have in the congregation. If
you only knew how nervous you sometimes make me!--when you get started
on some exciting passage and make a gesture that would throw a stone
image into a fit, and then begin to speak of something in a different
way, like another person, and the first I know I am caught up and hurled
into the subject, and forget all about you."

"Thank you," said Philip.

"What for?" asked his wife, laughing. "For forgetting you?"

"I would rather be forgotten by you than remembered by any one else,"
replied Philip, gallantly. "And you are such a delightful little
flatterer that I feel courage for anything that may happen."

"It's not flattery; it's truth, Philip. I do believe in you and your
work; and I am only anxious that you should succeed here. I can't bear
to think of trouble in the church. It would almost kill me to go through
such times as we sometimes read about."

"We must leave results to God. I am sure we are not responsible for more
than our utmost doing and living of necessary truth." Philip spoke
courageously.

"Then you don't feel disheartened by this morning's work?"

"No, I don't know that I do. I'm very sensitive, and I feel hurt at Mr.
Winter's threat of withdrawing his support; but I don't feel
disheartened for the work. Why should I? Am I not doing my best?"

"I believe you are. Only, dear Philip, be wise. Do not try to reform
everything in a week, or expect people to grow their wings before they
have started even pin-feathers. It isn't natural."

"Well, I won't," replied Philip, with a laugh. "Better trim your wings,
Sarah; they're dragging on the floor."

He hunted up his hat, which was one of the things Philip could never
find twice in the same place, kissed his wife, and went out to make the
visit at the mill which he was getting ready to make when Mr. Winter
called.

To his surprise, when he went down through the business part of the
town, he discovered that his sermon of Sunday had roused almost every
one. People were talking about it on the street--an almost unheard-of
thing in Milton. When the evening paper came out it described in
sensational paragraphs the Reverend Mr. Strong's attack on the wealthy
sinners of his own church, and went on to say that the church "was very
much wrought