Mr. Wayt gave out the opening hymn in tones that would have been clarion, but for an occasional break into falsetto that brought to March’s irreverent mind the wheezing drone of a bagpipe. We are living, we are dwelling, In a grand and awful time; In an age on ages telling, To be living is sublime. Hark! the waking up of nations, Gog and Magog to the fray! Hark! what soundeth? ’Tis creation Groaning for its latter day! His text was, as was his custom, startlingly peculiar: “_Only the stump of Dagon was left to him._” It was a political discourse, after the manner of a majority of discourses which are miscalled “National.” Government jobbery, nepotism, and chicanery; close corporations, railway monopolies, municipal contracts—each had its castigation; at each was hurled the prophecy of the day of doom when head and palms would be sundered from the fishy trunk, and evil in every form be dominated by God’s truth marching on. March listened for a while, then reverted to matters of more nearly personal interest. Last night’s incident had left a most disagreeable impression on his mind, which was confirmed by Mrs. Wayt’s demeanor. May’s assertion of the Bohemian flavor recurred to him more than once. No! the specious advocate of public reforms and private probity did not “ring true.” And protest as Hester might, with all the passion of a forceful nature, against her father’s double ways, he _was_ her father, and the ruler of his household. His wife, it was plain, believed in and imitated him. Gazing at the pale, large-featured face of the orator, now alive with his theme, and glancing from this to the refined, faded lineaments of her whose meek eyes were raised to it from the pastor’s pew, he was distrustful of both. He wished Hetty were not Mr. Wayt’s wife’s sister, or that he could marry her out of hand, and get his brother-in-law, once removed, a call to—Alaska! Her, he never doubted. Their acquaintance had been brief, and scanty opportunities of improving it had been vouchsafed to him of late; yet she had fastened herself too firmly upon affection and esteem to admit of the approach of disparaging suspicion. She might be a slave to her sister and her sister’s children. She could never be made a tool for the furtherance of unworthy ends. _She_ would not have said: “I did not inquire at what hour Mr. Wayt left his study last night!” If she spoke, it would be to tell the truth.