Philip hesitated a moment, and then replied seriously: "Yes, I truly believe I was--that is, I should not have been ashamed at any part of the interview to put myself into loving communion with my Heavenly Father." Mrs. Strong still looked disturbed and anxious. She was going over in her mind the probable result of Mr. Winter's antagonism to the minister. It looked to her like a very serious thing. Philip was inclined to treat the affair with calm philosophy, based on the knowledge that his conscience was clear of all fault in the matter. "What do you suppose Mr. Winter will do?" Mrs. Strong asked. "He threatened to withdraw his financial support, and said other paying members would do the same." "Do you think they will?" "I don't know. I shouldn't wonder if they do." "What will you do then? It will be dreadful to have a disturbance in the church of this kind, Philip; it will ruin your prospects here. You will not be able to work under all that friction." And the minister's wife suddenly broke down and had a good cry; while Philip comforted her, first by saying two or three funny things, and secondly by asserting, with a positive cheerfulness which was peculiar to him when he was hard pressed, that, even if the church withdrew all support, he (Philip) could probably get a job somewhere on a railroad, or in a hotel, where there was always a demand for porters who could walk up several flights of stairs with a good-sized trunk. "Sometimes I almost think I missed my calling," said Philip, purposely talking about himself in order to make his wife come to the defense. "I ought to have been a locomotive fireman." "The idea, Philip Strong! A man who has the gift of reaching people with preaching the way you do!" "The way I reach Mr. Winter, for example!" "Yes," said his wife, "the way you reach him. Why, the very fact that you made such a man angry is pretty good proof that you reached him. Such men are not touched by any ordinary preaching." "So you really think I have a little gift at preaching?" asked Philip, slyly. "A little gift! It is a great deal more than a little, Philip." "Aren't you a little prejudiced, Sarah?" "No, sir. I am the severest critic you ever have in the congregation. If you only knew how nervous you sometimes make me!--when you get started on some exciting passage and make a gesture that would throw a stone image into a fit, and then begin to speak of something in a different way, like another person, and the first I know I am caught up and hurled into the subject, and forget all about you." "Thank you," said Philip. "What for?" asked his wife, laughing. "For forgetting you?" "I would rather be forgotten by you than remembered by any one else," replied Philip, gallantly. "And you are such a delightful little flatterer that I feel courage for anything that may happen."