“Is that so? Well, now, you and Winthrop step on ahead a little; I want to see how you look in it. Splendid!” he said, as she took the boy's hand and looked back over her shoulder for Putney's applause. “Lyra tells us you've adopted her for the time being, Annie. I guess you'll have your hands full. But, as I was going to say, about feeling differently, my experience is that there's always a good-sized party for the perverse, simply because it seems to answer a need in human nature. There's a fascination in it; a man feels as if there must be something in it besides the perversity, and because it's so obviously wrong it must be right. Don't you believe but what a good half of the people in church to-day are pretty sure that Gerrish had a good reason for behaving indecently. The very fact that he did so carries conviction to some minds, and those are the minds we have got to deal with. When he gets up in the next Society meeting there's a mighty great danger that he'll have a strong party to back him.” “I can't believe it,” Annie broke out, but she was greatly troubled. “What do you think, Ellen; that there's any danger of his carrying the day against Mr. Peck?” “There's a great deal of dissatisfaction with Mr. Peck already, you know, and I guess Ralph's right about the rest of it.” “Well, I'm glad I've taken a pew. I'm with you for Mr. Peck, Ralph, heart and soul.” “As Brother Brandreth says about the Social Union. Well, that's right. I shall count upon you. And speaking of the Social Union, I haven't seen you, Annie, since that night at Mrs. Munger's. I suppose you don't expect me to say anything in self-defence?” “No, Ralph, and you needn't; _I've_ defended you sufficiently--justified you.” “That won't do,” said Putney. “Ellen and I have thought that all out, and we find that I--or something that stood for me--was to blame, whoever else was to blame, too; we won't mention the hospitable Mrs. Munger. When Dr. Morrell had to go away Brother Peck took hold with me, and he suggested good resolutions. I told him I'd tried 'em, and they never did me the least good; but his sort really seemed to work. I don't know whether they would work again; Ellen thinks they would. _I_ think we sha'n't ever need anything again; but that's what I always think when I come out of it--like a man with chills and fever.” “It was Dr. Morrell who asked Mr. Peck to come,” said Mrs. Putney; “and it turned out for the best. Ralph got well quicker than he ever did before. Of course, Annie,” she explained, “it must seem strange to you hearing us talk of it as if it were a disease; but that's just like what it is--a raging disease; and I can't feel differently about anything that happens in it, though I do blame people for it.” Annie followed with tender interest the loving pride that exonerated and idealised Putney in the words of the woman who had suffered so much with him, and must suffer. “I couldn't help speaking as I did to Mrs. Munger.”