“'Thusia told me long ago,” she said. “I asked her about it again to-day. I would rather you owed it to me, David.” She had the money with her, and she held it toward him questioningly. He took it. That was all; there was no question of a note or of repayment; no spoken thanks. He was not surprised that Rose had saved so much out of her earnings, neither did he hesitate to take the money from her, for he knew she offered it in all the kindness of her heart. He hoped, too, that by scrimping, as he had been, he could repay her in time. 'Thusia was neither better nor worse in health than she had been. Bright and cheerful, she had learned the great secret of patience. “If I must go,” David told her when there was no doubt that Lucille had set her heart on driving him from Riverbank, “I will go, of course; but until I know I am not wanted I will do my work as usual,” and 'Thusia was with him in that. In the long battle, never above the surface, that Lucille carried on, David never openly fought her. He fought by being David Dean, and by doing, day by day, as he had done for years. He visited his sick, preached his sermons, busied himself as always. The weapons Lucille used were those a woman powerful in a congregation has always at hand if she chooses to try to oust her pastor, and in addition she used her husband. Here and there she dropped hints that David was not as satisfactory as formerly. His sermons were lacking in something. Was it culture or sincerity! she asked--and she questioned the advisability of long tenure of a pulpit. By hint and question she tried to arouse dissatisfaction. It was the custom for ministers to exchange pulpits; she was loud in praise of whatever minister occupied David's pulpit for a day. Slowly she built up the dissatisfaction, until she felt it could be crystallized into a concrete opposition. She was a year or more doing this. With all the wile of a political boss she spread the seed of discontent, trusting it would fall on fertile soil. There were plenty of toadying women who gave her lip agreement when she uttered her disparagements, and at length she felt she could strike openly. She used B. C. for the purpose. B. C. did not relish the job. Like most of us he admired David, and had high esteem for him, but Lucille's husband would have been the last man to oppose Lucille. It really seemed an easy task. Lucille was an undisputed ruler in the church; the trustees were nonentities; the older members--those who had loved the young David in his first years in Riverbank--were dead or senile. B. C. spoke of the finances when he broached the matter of getting rid of David, and he had lists and tables to show that the income of the church had been stagnant. He suggested that a younger man, someone livelier, was needed--a money-raiser.