About every cottage there was an air of nature’s cheer and a suggestion of blooming activity. Only the little church looked hopeless and abandoned of men, the letters of its name staring out big-eyed and lonely from above the glass transom, while the plank of the _status quo_, nailed rudely across its front, was a brutal advertisement of its dishonored state. "Some day," mused John, "I think I’ll build a church, and I believe I’ll build it to look like a cottage, with roses round it and bougainvilleas and palms, with broad verandas, inviting lawns, and bowering vines. I’ll make it the most homey looking place in the whole neighborhood, with a rustic sign stuck up somewhere that says ’The Home of God’, or something like that." Still musing, the scornful words spoken to John by Scofield more than a year ago on the steps of the Pacific Union Club, came idling into his mind: "Remember! You’re not an actor! You’re a preacher." He smiled as he recalled Scofield’s irritation at the idea, and his own. How ridiculously impossible it had seemed then and seemed to-day! And it was still so irritating as to stir him into getting up and walking away from the little chapel in the direction of the street car. Yet his mind reverted to the closed door. "Won’t they be disappointed, though? Those children!" At the corner he turned and looked back as if to make sure. Yes, there was the weather-worn streak upon the door, at that reckless angle which proclaimed the mood of the man who placed it there. "And they nailed up God!" Hampstead commented grimly, swinging upon his car. That afternoon at five o’clock he left for Los Angeles. *CHAPTER XVII* *WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE* It was three o’clock on Thursday afternoon, and John was sitting happily in the Mitchell living-room in Los Angeles, waiting for Bessie to come from school. Mrs. Mitchell stood on the threshold, dressed for the street save for her gloves, at one of which she was tugging. "I have always felt, Mr. Hampstead, that you were a very good influence for Bessie," she was saying guilefully, "and I do wish you would talk her out of that university idea. She graduates from High in June, you know; and she talks nothing, thinks nothing, dreams nothing but university, university, uni-v-e-r-s-i-t-y!" Mrs. Mitchell’s elocutionary climax was calculated to convey a very fine impression of utter weariness with the word and with the idea; but John, who had flushed with gratification at the crafty compliment, would not be swerved by either guile or scorn from an instinctive loyalty to Bessie and her ideals. "I’m afraid I couldn’t do that," he said soberly. "My heart wouldn’t be in it. Bessie has a wonderful mind. You should give her every advantage."