"Well who else?" said Miss Essie, for some reason or other in an impatient temper. "Tell them your definition, will you, and ask who'll stand by you. Mrs. Stoutenburgh!--make them all stop and attend." "If I ask them you may think they come to please me." "No, no, you know how to say it. Mr. Stoutenburgh!--boys!--listen. I want to know how many there are here of a particular kind of people--Mr. Linden will tell you what kind." He spoke then--as Faith had once or twice heard him speak, sending his voice through the room almost without raising it. "Miss Essie de Staff wishes to know how many there are here of a particular kind of people--those that 'have sworn unto the Lord, and will not go back.' Whoever is of that number will please come over to this side." There was a little astonished pause. Mr. and Mrs. Stoutenburgh, just then at the further end of the room, had moved at Miss Essie's summons, but stopped short at the first sound of Mr. Linden's voice, and looked in a sort of maze,--_he_ clearly was not jesting, that was all they could make out. That too the boys saw: but for a minute they stood like statues,--then Reuben stepped from the group and walked quietly, deliberately, over to where Mr. Linden stood; the covenant-signing in his face glowing with the Free Church addition--"until death!" One and another followed him--one after another,--Faith was surprised to see how many: ranging themselves about Mr. Linden. But something in it all touched him--stirred him,--something perhaps personal to himself and them; for after the first three or four had come he looked no more,--his eyes fell, and the firmly compressed lips could not quite conceal their trembling. He stood as statue-like as the boys had done. In the interest of a moment and a scene that she never forgot, it was a simple thing that Faith lost thought of her own standing. Perhaps Miss Essie shared her oblivion of self for that minute; her look of uneasy curiosity changed to a sobriety that was almost awe. Perhaps self-recollection came back; for after eying the dumb show with uncommonly blank black eyes, both they and she suddenly started into action. "That will do," she said with voice and gesture,--"you may go back--scatter! and be boys again. Mr. Linden, what I complain of is, that you say _you_ are on the Lord's side and that everybody else is not!" His thoughts came back slowly, as from some far distant region,--he even turned to Faith and wheeled up a chair for her before he answered. "No, Miss Essie--those last words I believe I never said. But the 'Lord knoweth them that are his'--let each one have answering knowledge for himself." Miss Essie's look was not comfortable. She abandoned the point in hand, and swallowed her cold coffee. "What _are_ you talking about?" said Mrs. Stoutenburgh coming up to them. "What sort of a game was that, Miss Essie?" "Nothing,"--said Miss Essie. "I said I would study Mr. Linden--and I have. I've found out two things about him."