"Mother, you needn't make a mournful face at me." Ann's face was flushed, and she looked very much in earnest. "You've simply no idea how difficult it is for a minister's family to be anything but mere formalists. You see, we hear so much about it all. From our infancy we are familiar with all the shibboleths, until they almost cease to have any meaning. I used to think as a child that it was most unfairly easy for the heathen. I pictured myself hearing for the very first time the story of Jesus Christ, and I thought with what gratitude and love I would have fallen on my knees to thank Him.... As it was, we knew the message so well that our attention was chiefly directed to the messengers, and you must admit, Mother, we had some very queer ones. You can't have forgotten the big, red-haired evangelist, as rough as the heather, who told us a story of a pump being 'off the fang,' and finished remarkably with 'Ah, my friends, God's pump's never off the fang.' I think it was the same man who said we were just like faggots, 'fit for the burning.' Oh, but do you remember the man in Glasgow who illustrated the shortness of life with a story about 'Gran'papaw' who ..." "_Ann!_" Mrs. Douglas had finished her daily reading and sat with the pile of devotional books on her knee, eyeing her daughter with a mixture of disapproval and unwilling amusement. "Ann, you turn everything into ridicule." Ann protested. "There's no ridicule about it. It is a very good serious tale. 'Gran'papaw he gae two...'" Again her mother interrupted her. "I'm sure your father would be sorry to hear you laughing at evangelists. He revelled in evangelistic work." Ann gave a squeal of rage. "_Mother_! D'you know what sort of picture of Father you would give to anyone who didn't know him? Someone with a smug face and a soapy manner, and a way of shaking hands as if he had a poached egg in the palm. Could there be anything less like my father? There was nothing unctuous about him, nothing of the professional religionist. He was like a Raeburn portrait to look at... 'A face filled with a fine old-fashioned grace, Fresh-coloured, frank----' and he never thought that because he was virtuous there should be no more cakes and ale. He was a minister simply because the great fact of his life was Christ, and he desired above everything to bring men to Him. I never read of Mr. Standfast but I think of Father, for he, too, loved to hear his Lord spoken of, and coveted to set his feet in his Master's footprints...." Ann stopped and looked in a shamefaced way at her mother. "And now I'm preaching! It's in my blood--well, you were beginning to tell me about the revival in Kirkcaple when I started to blaspheme. Please go on." "Well, you may laugh at evangelists..." "_Who's_ laughing?" cried Ann.