“Yes, an’ he kin do without it, too, unless the Lord wills. Fight the devices o’ Satan, an’ don’t git ter be a beggar at the throne fur gratifyin’ yer own yearthly quirks. Prayin’ an’ a-prayin’ fur the power! The power’s a gift, my brother, a free gift, an’ no man will git it by baigin’ an’ baigin’ an’ teasin’ fur it.” He strode off, feeling that he had had the best of the discussion. He was discerning enough to be conscious that, despite his belligerencies, he was often inferior to his youthful _confrère_ in the rhetoric of the pulpit, and he relished the more worsting him in argument, thus proving the superiority of his judgment and solid reasoning capacities. Outside the door a group of loiterers still lingered. The juggler’s prudential motives had collapsed utterly in the prospect of Mrs. Sims’s society in the long walk home. He looked about him with a desperate hope of diversion, in which Euphemia and the curiosity she had newly excited were factors. But he was fain to be content with his elderly companion, for as Euphemia’s rose-hued dress blossomed in the portal against the dark brown background of the interior he noticed that Owen Haines was standing at the foot of the steps evidently awaiting her. The mountaineer gave her no greeting, but walked beside her as if his companionship were a matter of course. “Warn’t that a plumb special sermon?” he said enthusiastically, turning his candid eyes upon her. “’Pears like ter me ’twar the best, the meltin’est, the searchin’est discourse I ever hear.” There was a measure of contempt in her face. She would not have admitted that she thought herself too good for the need of salvation, but the theme with all its cognate elements was palling. She replied with a definite note of sarcasm in her voice. “The bes’? Waal, I hev hearn ye say that time an’ time agin. The sermons air _all_ the bes’, ’cordin’ ter you-uns.” “Yes,” he admitted a trifle drearily, “ef I lose my soul, ’twon’t be bekase I ain’t hed the bes’ chance fur salvation. I hev sot under a power o’ good an’ discernin’ sermons in my time.”