'The Fountain-head!' exclaimed Mrs. Dallas, in indignant protest; and then she remembered her wisdom, and said no more. It cost her an effort; however, she knew that for her to set up a defence of either Church or Prayer-book just then would not be wise, and that she had better leave the matter in Betty's hands. She looked at Betty anxiously. The young lady's face showed her cool and collected, not likely to be carried away by any stream of enthusiasm or overborne by influence. It was, in fact, more cool than she felt. She liked to get into a good talk with Pitt upon any subject, and so far was content; at the same time she would rather have chosen any other than this, and was a little afraid whereto it might lead. Religion had not been precisely her principal study. True, it had not been his principal study either; but Betty discerned a difference in their modes of approaching it. She attributed that to the Puritan or dissenting influences which had at some time got hold of him. To thwart those would at any rate be a good work, and she prepared herself accordingly. Pitt opened his book and turned over a few leaves. 'To begin with,' he said, 'you admit that whatever this book commands we are bound to obey?' 'Provided we understand it,' his opponent put in. 'Provided we understand it, of course. A command not understood is hardly a command. Now here is a word which has struck me, and I would like to know how it strikes you.' He turned to the familiar twenty-fifth of Matthew and read the central portion, the parable of the talents. He read like an interested man, and perhaps it was owing to a slight unconscious intonation here and there that Pitt's two hearers listened as if the words were strangely new to them. They had never heard them sound just so. Yet the reading was not dramatic at all; it was only a perfectly natural and feeling deliverance. But feeling reaches feeling, as we all know. The reading ceased, nobody spoke for several minutes. 'What does it mean?' asked Pitt. 'My dear,' said his mother, 'can there be a question what it means? The words are perfectly simple, it seems to me.' 'Mamma, I am not talking to you. You may sit as judge and arbiter; but it is Miss Frere and I who are disputing. She will have the goodness to answer.' 'I do not know what to answer,' said the young lady. 'Are not the words, as Mrs. Dallas says, perfectly plain?' 'Then surely it cannot be difficult to say what the teaching of them is?' If it was not difficult, the continued silence of the lady was remarkable. She made no further answer. '_Are_ they so plain? I have been puzzling over them. I will divide the question, and perhaps we can get at the conclusion better so. In the first place, who are these "servants" spoken of?' 'Everybody, I suppose. You have the advantage of me, Mr. Dallas; I have _not_ been studying the passage.' 'Yet you admit that we are bound to obey it.' 'Yes,' she said doubtfully. 'Obey what?'