'Your father is quite right,' put in Mrs. Dallas. 'I should not like a dissenter in my family. I should not know how to get on with her. In chance social intercourse it does not so much matter--though I feel the difference even there; but in the family-- It is always best for like to keep to like.' 'But these are only differences of form, mother.' 'Do you think so?' said Mrs. Dallas, drawing up her handsome person. 'I believe in form, Pitt, for my part; and when you get to England you will find that it is only the nobodies who dispense with it. But the Church is more than form, I should think. You'll find the Archbishop of Canterbury is something besides a form. And is our Liturgy a form?' Pitt escaped from the discussion, half angry and half amused, but seriously concerned about Esther. And meanwhile Esther was having her own thoughts. She had come home from her blackberrying late, after Pitt had gone home; and a little further on in the afternoon she had followed him, to get her daily lesson. As the weather was warm all windows were standing open; and the talkers within the house, being somewhat eager and preoccupied in their minds, did not moderate their voices nor pay any attention to what might be going on outside; and so it happened that Esther's light step was not heard as it came past the windows; and it followed very easily that one or two half sentences came to her ear. She heard her own name, which drew her attention, and then Mr. Dallas's declaration that he would have no dissenters in his house. Esther paused, not certainly to listen, but with a sudden check arising from something in the tone of the words. As she stood still in doubt whether to go forward or not, a word or two more were spoken and also heard; and with that Esther turned short about, left all thought of her lesson, and made her way home; walking rather faster than she had come. She laid off her hat, went into the room where her father was, and sat down in the window with a book. 'Home again, Esther?' said he. 'You have not been long away.' 'No, papa.' 'Did you have your lesson?' 'No, papa.' 'Why not?' 'Pitt was talking to somebody.' The colonel made no further remark, and the room was very still for awhile. Until after au hour or more the colonel's book went down; and then Esther from her window spoke again. 'Papa, if you please, what is a "dissenter"?' 'A _what?_' demanded the colonel, rousing himself. 'A "dissenter," papa.' 'What do you know about dissenters?' 'Nothing, papa. What is it?' 'What makes you ask?' 'I heard the word, papa, and I didn't know what it meant.' 'There is no need you should know what it means. A dissenter is one who dissents.' 'From what, sir?' 'From something that other people believe in.' 'But, papa, according to that, then, everybody is a dissenter; and that is not true, is it?' 'What has put the question into your head?' 'I heard somebody speaking of dissenters.' 'Whom?' 'Mrs. Dallas.'