Mr. Armstrong was evidently much pleased that the colonel so heartily sympathized with his tale. And every one else added some words of commendation. I could not help thinking with myself that he had only embodied the story of his own life in other more striking forms. But I knew that, if I said so, he would laugh at me, and answer that all he had done was quite easy to do--he had found no difficulty in it; whereas this man was a hero and did the thing that he found very difficult indeed. Still I was sure that the story was at least the outgrowth of his own mind. "May we ask," I said, "how much of the tale is fact?" "I am sorry it is not all fact," he answered. "Tell us how much, then," I said. "Well, I will tell you what made me write it. I heard an old lady at a dinner-table mention that she had once known a young officer who had his sword broken over his head, and was dismissed from the army, for cowardice. I began trying first to understand his feelings; then to see how the thing could have happened; and then to discover what could be done for him. And hence the story. That was all, I am sorry to say." "I thought as much," I rejoined. "Will you excuse me if I venture to make a remark?" said Mrs. Bloomfield. "With all my heart," answered the curate. "It seemed to me that there was nothing Christian in the story. And I cannot help feeling that a clergyman might, therefore, have done better." "I allow that in words there is nothing Christian," answered Mr. Armstrong; "and I am quite ready to allow also that it might have been better if something of the kind you mean had been expressed in it. The whole thing, however, is only a sketch. But I cannot allow that, in spirit and scope, it is anything other than Christian, or indeed anything but Christian. It seems to me that the whole might be used as a Christian parable." While the curate spoke, I had seen Adela's face flush; but the cause was not _visible_ to me. As he uttered the last words, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and Harry's voice said: "At your parables again, Ralph?" He had come in so gently that the only sign of his entrance had been the rose-light on Adela's cheeks.--Was he the sun? And was she a cloud of the east? "Glad to see you safe amongst us again," said the colonel, backed by almost every one of the company. "What's your quarrel with my parables, Harry?" said the curate. "Quarrel? None at all. They are the delight of my heart. I only wish you would give our friends one of your best--_The Castle_, for instance." "Not yet a while, Harry. It is not my turn for some time, I hope. Perhaps Miss Cathcart will be tired of the whole affair, before it comes round to me again." "Then I shall deserve to be starved of stories all the rest of my life," answered Adela, laughing. "If you will allow me, then," said Harry, "I will give you a parable, called _The Lost Church_, from the German poet, Uhland."