Phil promised: he could not resist his mother’s appealing eyes. As the old lady prophesied, the family were not annoyed the day of the supper to the minister. Phil’s conscience was not easy in anticipation of the expected guest, for he knew he would be questioned about the appearance of noted New York divines whom he would be supposed to have heard, whereas the only service he had attended was at the Tramlays’ church, the pastor of which had no notoriety at all. Perhaps it was to punish his youthful parishioner for neglect of religious privileges that the good man questioned Phil quite closely about the Tramlay family and delivered a thoughtful analysis of the character of the oldest daughter, with comments upon the probable effects of marriage on various qualities of her nature. After each statement he appealed to Phil for corroboration, and on his way home confided to his wife that he believed he had fully prepared the dear young brother for what he might expect should he take the important step upon which in all probability he was resolved. Phil endured with becoming fortitude the minister’s remarks about Lucia, and the whispered but not unheard comments of the minister’s wife on the “store clothes,” which had been worn in deference to Mrs. Hayn’s request. He ate the three kinds of solid cake without which no supper to a Haynton minister was supposed to be complete. He made unusual effort, his father being away, to cause the visit one to be pleasantly remembered by the good pastor. He was rewarded by discovering that his trip to the city which he had heard called the “Modern Sodom” and the “American Babylon” had not destroyed nor even weakened his interest in religious subjects, and he was prepared to retire with a more peaceable mind than he had known in several days. But after the table had been cleared and the uneaten pieces of cake carefully put in an earthen jar against the next Sunday’s tea, and Phil was about to go to his room, his mother said,-- “Dearie, I s’pose you’ll wear your new black things to meetin’ Sunday mornin’, won’t you?” “Oh, mother,” said Phil, with a frown quickly succeeded by a laugh, “nobody ever wears such a coat to church. Everybody would laugh at me.” “Dear me!” said the old lady, evidently disappointed quite deeply. “I want to know! Then when _be_ you goin’ to wear it?” “Never, I suppose,” said Phil, his smile vanishing. “I was an extravagant fool to buy that coat. I’ll never forgive myself for it.” “Never?” the old lady had echoed. “Then your poor old mother, who loves you better than anybody in the world, is never to see you in it?”