“He’s just a plain little minister--no habit or anything like that. He’s wonderful with men and boys. He thanked me for helping with the parish house, and when candour compelled me to tell him that I didn’t know it was his enterprise and that he had got what was left after restoring a Buddhist temple, he smiled in just his old boyish way, and I made him get in the machine and take me to see the place, which is the simplest. There was a sign on the door of the parish house that said, ‘Boxing Lessons Tuesday Night, by a Competent Instructor. All Welcome.’ And it was signed ‘J. Paddock, Rector.’” “If this minister is the boy we knew when Wayne was at St. John’s I should think he would have come to see us,” remarked Colonel Craighill. “We used to meet his family now and then.” “I scolded him for not telling us he’s here; and he said he had been too busy. He asked all about you, Wayne--said he was going to look you up; but when I asked him to come and dine with us he was so unhappy in trying to get out of it that I told him not to bother. He’s perfectly devoted to his work, and they say the people out there are crazy about him.” “Dear old Jimmy!” mused Wayne. “I wonder how he’s kept it so dark. You never can tell! Jimmy used to exhaust his chapel cuts the first week every term. If he’s taken to saving souls, though, he’ll do it; he hangs on like a bull pup. I can see him now at that last Thanksgiving game going down the field with the ball under his arm--he was as fast as lightning. I’d like to take a few boxing lessons from Jimmy myself, if he’s in the business.” Coffee was served; Mrs. Blair dropped the Reverend James Paddock and watched her father choose his single lump of sugar. He refused a cigar but waited until Wayne had lighted a cigarette before he dismissed the waitress and began. “It must have occurred to you both that I might at some time marry again.” “Yes, father; I suppose that possibility has occurred to many people,” replied his daughter, feeling that something was required at once. Wayne said nothing, but drew his chair back from the table and crossed his legs. “I want you to understand that your dead mother’s life is a precious--a very precious memory. My determination to marry means no disloyalty to her.” He bowed his head and drew one hand lightly across the table. “I have been lonely at times; the management of the house in itself has been a burden, but I have not liked to give it up. I might have gone to live with you, Fanny,--you and John have been kind in urging me--but you have your own family; and as long as Wayne is unmarried the old place must be his home. The change I propose making will have no effect on your status in my house, Wayne--none whatever!” “Thank you; I appreciate that, sir.”