"I might," said the lady, after musing a little while, "I might possibly make her a place among my own servants, but I imagine she would not care for such a position, for I have always discovered that the servants who have been in hotels are dissatisfied with any other sort of service. Besides, you probably do not wish her to associate with the servant class, and it would be far better for her if she did not." "She'd have to go, ma'am, if you was willin' to take her," said the cobbler, "but, as you say, whether she'd stay or not is a question. Oh, Mrs. Prency," said he, resuming his work again with violent energy, "it's the hardest question that ever come up to me in all my life. It's harder than bein' in jail or breakin' off drinkin' or anythin' else that I ever tried. It's even harder than goin' to work; I give you my word it is." "Mr. Kimper," said the lady, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I give you my word that I will think earnestly on the subject, and do it at once, and give myself no rest until I have devised some plan to do what you have asked me." "God bless you, ma'am! God bless you!" said the cobbler, dropping a tear upon one of the grimy hands at work upon the shoe. CHAPTER IX. Reynolds Bartram was greatly annoyed by the results of the several interviews he had imposed upon the new assistant cobbler at Bruceton. He had silenced, if not conquered, all the other religious controversialists of the town, and found the weak spots in the armor of many good people not given to controversy, whom he had beguiled into talking on religious themes. Why he should want to converse at all upon such subjects puzzled the people of the town, all of whom had known him from boyhood as a member of a family so entirely satisfied with itself that it never desired any aid from other people, to say nothing of higher powers. Sometimes the Bartrams went to church for social purposes, but always with an air of conferring a favor upon the power in whose honor the edifice was erected. But Bartram had good enough reasons for his sudden interest in religion. He was in love with Eleanor Prency, and, after the manner of his family regarding everything that interested them, he was tremendously in earnest with his wooing. Like a judicious lawyer, he had endeavored to make his way easier by prepossessing the girl's parents in his favor; but when he began to pass the lines of pleasing civility, within which he had long known the judge and his wife, he was surprised to find an undercurrent of seriousness, the existence of which in the Prency family he never had suspected. The judge appeared to estimate everything from the stand-point of religion and righteousness; so did his wife; so, though in less measure, did the daughter.