"Joke!" exclaimed Nort. "Isn't every word of it true? I leave it to Miss Grayson if I haven't been absolutely accurate. And I could have said a lot more about the service that would have been equally true--and a great deal funnier." I could see generations of Puritan ancestors marshalling themselves for the fray in Harriet's horrified countenance. I could scarcely keep from laughing. "Yes," I began, "every word is true----" "The piano tuner," broke in Harriet, "couldn't come last week." "But, Nort," I continued; "you may have seen the church in Hempfield, but have you felt it?" "Even if old Mrs. Johnson _does_ eat peppermints----" Harriet was saying. "Then you wouldn't put the truth in the _Star_?" said Nort. I was about to reply, when the old Captain raised a commanding hand. "The trouble is," said he with great deliberation, "that we _do_ print the truth in the _Star_; but this new generation, fed upon luxury and ease, has lost its desire for the truth. We're preaching the same sound doctrine that we've preached for thirty years--but the people refuse the truth. They say to us, 'Prophesy not unto us right things. Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.' They are wandering in the wilderness. They have made unto themselves a graven image of free trade, and they are falling down and worshipping before the profane altar of what they are pleased to call the Rights of Women. Rights of Women!" Whenever the old Captain grew most eloquent he always waxed Biblical. Here Nort broke in again: "Well, if you don't like that report--I wrote it more than half in fun anyway--here's another. It's the truth--I felt it, too, David--and I haven't used a single name!" I can see him yet, sitting up there behind the table, quite rigid, reading from his manuscript: "There is a man in this town who quarrels regularly with his wife. He quarrelled with her this morning at breakfast: said the eggs were overdone and the coffee was cold. The sun was shining in at the window, the birds were singing, and the grass was green--but he was quarrelling with his wife----" Well, Nort had a breathless audience! This time he was in deadly earnest. His sketch was not long, but it was as vivid a picture of the torment of domestic unhappiness as ever I have seen in such brief compass. Moreover, it had the very passion, the cut and thrust of the truth of things. No sooner had he finished reading than Harriet leaned forward and asked in a half whisper, all ablaze with shocked interest. "Who is it? Is it the Newtons?" It was Nort's turn to look surprised. "Why, no," said he. "I don't know the Newtons at all." "But you must have had some one in mind." "No," said Nort; "it's just a description of how married people quarrel." "But it's exactly what the Newtons do," said Harriet. Here the old Captain broke in.