"We children dearly loved Dr. Struthers," said Ann; "but we did not appreciate the length of his sermons. My friend, Mrs. Smail--the butcher's wife, you remember?--used to sit with a most forlorn face while he preached; thinking, I expect, that she would be half an hour late, and that the numerous young Smails would have fallen in the fire. Dear me, it's a long time since I thought of Mrs. Smail. I liked her very much. There was a sort of bond of sympathy between us, and she invited me sometimes to tea-parties where we got tea and cookies and penny cakes and hot roast beef. I never learned to appreciate the combination, but the rest of the company seemed to enjoy it. I sat beside one gentleman who, after doing full justice to the meal, wiped his forehead with a red silk handkerchief, and, turning to me, said, 'A grand house this for flesh.' After the 'flesh' we all contributed songs and recitations--great evenings. Well, what I mean to say is that Mrs. Smail represented the new people who were impatient of Dr. Struthers and impatient of all the old traditions of the church which the original members clung to with such pathetic loyalty." "But in time," said Mrs. Douglas, "the new-comers got to see how very fine the old man was, and everybody was sorry when he got too frail to preach. It was quite extraordinary how fond you children were of him, for he never told you stories or played with you." "No," said Ann thoughtfully, "he never did anything to make himself popular. We didn't expect it any more than we would have expected a god from Mount Olympus to jest with a mortal. They say we needs must love the highest when we see it, but that isn't true; often the highest simply irritates. I think it was his simple goodness that made us fond of him, and a certain understanding and sympathy that he had for bad children. And he never talked down to us or became facetious." Mrs. Douglas nodded. "I know. Children like to be taken seriously, and Dr. Struthers was certainly not given to making fun of them." Ann clasped her hands round her knees and looked into the fire.