“Ah, little one, are you there?” said the fond parent playfully. “I missed you from the dinner table and might have guessed that you could be nowhere but here.” Profound silence ensued, and lasted for a minute. Hester shrank into herself with a blush visible even in the shadowy interior. March and May had gone through orchard and gardens to fetch her an hour ago. Her father had eaten his evening meal at the same table with her. In the circumstances there was nothing to say, a fact comprehended by all except the unconscious offender. “I think Mrs. Wayt will find her horse gentle,” said Judge Gilchrist, in formal civility too palpable to his wife. With intelligent apprehension of the truth, too often overlooked, that confidence in the truth bearer must precede obedience to his message, she desired that her husband and son should like Mr. Wayt. To March she had confessed her fear that some of the family were “peculiar,” and he might infer the inclusion of the nominal head in the category. Further than this she would not go. With pious haste she picked the fly out of the ointment, and with holy duplicity beguiled others into approval of the article that bore the trade mark of “The Church.” Ah, the Church!—in every age and, despite lapses and shortcomings and stains, the custodian of the Ark of God—her debt to such devout and loyal souls as this woman’s will never be estimated until the Master shall make acknowledgment of it in the great day of reckoning. When the judge’s turn of the subject and the “horsey” talk that followed granted his wife leisure to reconsider the matter, she discovered that there was no cause for discomfiture. Mr. Wayt was absent-minded, as were all students of deep things. Only, her husband was quick of sight and wit, and neither March nor May had much to say, of late, of the new preacher who was doing such excellent work in the congregation. March went regularly to church and sat beside his mother through prayer and hymn and sermon, and afterward refrained from adverse criticism. This may have been out of respect to the girl he hoped to make his wife. Yet she had dared fancy that the graver tenderness of his behavior to herself and the unusual periods of thoughtfulness that occurred in their conversations had to do with the dawning of spiritual life in his soul. However much certain of Mr. Wayt’s mannerisms might offend her taste, there was no question of his ability and eloquence. That these might be the divinely appointed nets for the ingathering into the Church of her best beloved was a burden that weighted every petition.