But whatever the Judge's views were on the chess game of the cosmos, Margaret, his wife, had no desire to beat God at his own game. She was a seeker, who always was looking for a new God. God after God had passed in weary review before her. She was always ready to tune up with the infinite, and to ignore the past--a most comfortable thing to do under the circumstances. As she turned into Market Street one February morning of the New Year in the New Century, leading her dachshund, she was revolving a deep problem in her head. She was trying to get enough faith to believe that her complexion did not need a renovation. She knew that the skin-thought she kept holding was earth-bound and she had tried to shake it, but it wouldn't shake. She had progressed far enough in the moment's cult to overcome a food-thought when her stomach hurt her, by playing a stiff game of bridge for a little stake. But the skin-thought was with her, and she was nervous and irritable and upon the verge of tears for nothing at all. Moreover, her dog kept pulling at his leash, so altogether her cup was running over and she went into Mr. Brotherton's store to ask him to try to find an English translation of a highly improper German book with a pious title about which she had heard from a woman from Chicago who had been visiting her. Now Mr. Brotherton had felt the impulse of the town's prosperity in his business. The cigar stand was gone. In its place was a handsome plain glass case containing expensive books--books bound in vellum, books in hand-tooled leather, books with wide, ragged margins of heavy linen paper around deep black types with illuminated initials at the chapter heads; books filled with extravagant illustrations, books so beautiful that Mr. Brotherton licked his chops with joy when he considered the difference between the cost mark and the price mark. The Amen Corner was gone--the legend that had come down from the pool room, "Better go to bed lonesome than wake up in debt," had been carted to the alley. While the corner formerly occupied by the old walnut bench still held a corner seat, it was a corner seat with sharp angles, with black stain upon it, and upholstered in rich red leather, and red leather pillows lounged luxuriously in the corners of the seat; a black, angular table and a red, angular shade over a green angular lamp sat where the sawdust box had been. True--a green angular smoker's set also was upon the table--the only masculine appurtenance in the corner; but it was clearly a sop thrown out to offended and exiled mankind--a mere mockery of the solid comfort of the sawdust box, filled with cigar stubs and ashes that had made the corner a haven for weary man for nearly a score of years. Above the black-stained seat ran a red dado and upon that in fine old English script, where once the old sign of the Corner had been nailed, there ran this legend: