“Yes, madam,” Kenneth answered, wondering who this stranger was intruding thus upon them, but still attracted by the sweetness of her face. “Then, may I try?” she said. “It is not often that we offer our services, but in this case I feel that I must. May I see her? I am Mrs. Foster, from Boston.” The deacon had been a silent looker-on up to this point; when he started up, every hair on his head bristling with wrath. He knew now who the woman was. He had heard of her visiting at a neighbor’s, and that she belonged to a sect which he esteemed little better than heathen. “Ken,” he exclaimed, “Ken, listen to me!” but before Kenneth could reply, Dr. Catherin, who guessed who the woman was, and while not believing in her at all was less prejudiced than the deacon, said in reply to Kenneth’s questioning look at him: “Let her go up. She can do no harm. She is a Scientist.” “Oh-h!” and Kenneth shuddered. If all medicine had failed, what could she do? Nothing. And still her face pleaded with him until he said, “Come with me,” while his father, completely unstrung, exclaimed: “Ken, Ken, don’t you know it is all a delusion,—a device of the devil,—and right here in my house!” But Kenneth was half way up the stairs, and did not hear the distracted man, who, not willing to stay where such things were going on, seized his hat, and going out to the steps of the old church, sat there with the feeling that the sanctity of the place would in a measure atone for the enormity of the wickedness being practiced under his roof. And while he sat there his clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Stone, came up from the village on a calling tour. Seeing the deacon, he alighted from his buggy and came and sat down by him, asking how Miss Elliott was. “Dying,” the deacon replied. “Ken says so, and Dr. Catherin says so; and I guess they know, but,—oh,—don’t blame me who has been a deacon in good and regular standing in the orthodox church for thirty years. ’Tain’t my doings. They’ve a limb of Satan in there to see what she can do!” “Wha-at?” Mr. Stone asked, thinking the deacon crazy. “What do you mean? Who is in there?” “A Science woman! You’ve heard of ’em,” the deacon replied, expecting an explosion from his minister, but none came. Mr. Stone was the most charitable of men, with broad views, which could take in more than the tenets of his own church. “I’ve heard of them, yes,” he said, “and believe them to be good Christian people,—fanatical and cranky, perhaps,—but conscientious, and living what they profess.” The deacon looked aghast at this high-handed heresy in his minister, but just then Mrs. Foster was seen leaving the farmhouse, and he only said: “There she is. Let’s go and see if Connie is up and dressed and combin’ her hair, as they pretend they can do.” They found Mrs. Stannard and Dr. Catherin and Kenneth in the sitting-room, speaking together in low tones. “How is Connie?” the deacon asked, and Kenneth replied: “No change.”