"Deplorable!" Then he added, "Sorry, Catia, as I said before. Still, I suppose, if I'm not a beauty, I'm about what the good Lord made me." "Fudge!" She put down her cup and rested her chin upon her palms. Seen across the table and in a pose so undeniably feminine and so becoming to almost every woman, Catia was good to look upon; would have been good, that is, had not her personality been uncomfortably domineering. The two years since her marriage had rubbed down certain of her angles, and had given her at least a superficial polish. She occasionally admitted to herself that she was very near to being handsome. A more critical observer and one less prejudiced, however, might possibly have added that she was curiously devoid of charm. Brenton, on the other hand, was growing curiously magnetic, as the months ran on, was developing a personal charm of which his student days had given scarcely any hint. The old lines, born of hard work and scanty nourishment, had vanished from his face. In place of them had come other lines, vastly more becoming, lines engraved by earnest, conscientious thought and study, by a life so ascetic as to be a little narrow, perhaps, but noble enough in its aspirations to lift itself high above the common level. He still was lean and thin, still a little stooping. The habits of his life would account for that; he was too busy saving other men's souls to give much thought to the preservation of his own body. Even in a small and humdrum country parish, the souls of men need careful shepherding; every now and then there comes a petty crisis when they confess to a desire for outside guidance, and it was in such crises that Scott Brenton found his opportunity. His sermons, albeit a trifle immature, were really clever. None the less, they dwindled into insignificance beside the practical, personal help he gave to his parishioners, a help that came without the asking, whether the crisis were a dying cow, a small son's broken arm, or a fire in a granary just after the final harvest. Whatever happened in the parish, for good or ill, Scott Brenton always appeared upon the scene. At the very first, he had come of his own accord. Later, if his arrival delayed itself for a dozen minutes, he was sent for in hot haste. In every crisis, he was ready with practical advice; but he worked with both hands, the while he gave it.