"The first evening she was here, she told me she had always been 'a great Bible student.' She spends much time over a very large Bible, which she marks in various coloured inks, and with extraordinary criss-cross lines, which she calls 'railways'. She explained the system to me one day, and showed me a new 'line' she had just made. You started at the top of a page at the word _little_. Then you followed down a blue line, which brought you to a second mention of the word _little_. From there you zigzagged off, still on blue, right across to the opposite page; and there found _little_, again. This was a junction! If you started down a further blue line you arrived at yet a fourth _little_, but if you adventured along a red line, you found _less_. "I had hoped to learn a lot from Mrs. Mallory, when she said she was a _great_ Bible student, because I am so new at Bible study, and have no one to help me. But I confess these railway excursions from _little_ to _little_, and from _little_ to _less_, appear to me somewhat futile! None of the _littles_ had any connection with one another; that is, until Mrs. Mallory's blue railway connected them. She is now making a study of all the Marys of the Bible. She has a system by which she is going to prove that they were all one and the same person. I suggested that this would be an infinite pity; as they all have such beautiful individual characters, and such beautiful individual histories. "'Truth before beauty, my dear Mrs. Rivers,' said Mrs. Mallory. "'Cannot truth and beauty go together?' I inquired. "'No, indeed,' pronounced Mrs. Mallory, firmly. 'Truth is a narrow line; beauty is a snare.' "According to which method of reasoning, my dear David, I ought to have serious misgivings as to whether your Christmas-eve sermon, which changed my whole outlook on life, was true--seeing that it most certainly was beautiful! "Now listen to my little story. "One morning, during this last autumn, Mrs. Mallory received a business letter at breakfast, necessitating an immediate journey to town, for a trying interview. After much weighing of pros and cons, she decided upon a train; and I sent her to the station in the motor.