The rescue matron’s bigotry he had deplored as “a pinch” in a nature usually broad. To err was human, he reported himself as having told her, but she must not be human in the same way again. To his wider vision, the Home had been established for just such as Dolores Trent. He had the girl to thank, not she him, for the chance to prove his philanthropy. Provided with the very sort of work for which she was best fitted and housed comfortably in the apartment of one of those humbler parishioners always attached to rich churches, she realized one mid-morning, less than a month after the Seff debacle, that she still was in a state of discontent. Alone in the study, she paused in her copying to take herself to task. Why be so unappreciative as not to be happy? Her immediate predecessor, for whom she had felt inclined to be sorry, had lost the position because, as Dr. Willard explained, she wasn’t appreciative. The only manifest reason for her state of mind lay in the stuffed animals and birds, slain by the distinguished clergyman on his hunting trips, with which the room was given individuality. Over the fireplace was hung a magnificently antlered moose head. A glass-eyed doe, a pair of stuffed foxes and lesser game stood about in natural attitudes. From the ceiling various birds strove on wires, as though in flight. Particularly lifelike was a fine specimen of lynx, posed ready to spring just within the door. Although the new secretary had heard many compliments paid this trophy collection and had read her employer referred to as “Dr. Nimrod” and “The Hunting Parson,” she could not admire in him this passion for the chase. The very naturalness of the poor, pretty creatures made her deplore their cut-short lives. Often she found herself imagining the one-time fleetness of the doe or the swish of the wind-spread wings of the golden eagle, wired in an attitude of flying, pitiable because never--never would he fly again. A teasing explanation of the lynx’s crouch made by the doctor to a woman parishioner sounded tame beside the ferocity which the taxidermist had stuffed into the specimen. “I keep the big cat by the door to startle my visiting ladies. He gives them a sensation, hurries their blood, makes them natural.” Slavery to such a mission did seem hard on the lynx after the free life he must have led to achieve his immense size. Dolores, yielding to her fanciful mood, crossed the room and offered him a bite from her paper-bag lunch. Crouched beside him, her arm around his neck--So the minister found her when he brisked in for a belated inspection of the morning mail. He gave her an indulgent smile as she sprang to her feet, but contributed no remark to her embarrassment.