Produced by Eric Eldred, ckirschner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team The Puritans By Arlo Bates The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. _All's Well That Ends Well_, iv. 3. "Abandoning my heart, and rapt in ecstasy, I ran after her till I came to a place in which religion and reason forsook me." _Persian Religious Hymn. CONTENTS I. AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT II. THERE BEGINS CONFUSION III. AS FALSE AS STAIRS OF SAND IV. SOME SPEECH OF MARRIAGE V. VOLUBLE AND SHARP DISCOURSE VI. HEART-BURNING HEAT OF DUTY VII. THE SHOT OF ACCIDENT VIII. LIKE COVERED FIRE IX. HIS PURE HEART'S TRUTH X. A SYMPATHY OF WOE XI. IN PLACE AND IN ACCOUNT NOTHING XII. THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE XIII. A NECESSARY EVIL XIV. HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY XV. HEARTSICK WITH THOUGHT XVI. THE GREAT ASSAY OF ART XVII. A BOND OF AIR XVIII. CRUEL PROOF OF THIS MAN'S STRENGTH XIX. 'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL XX. IN WAY OF TASTE XXI. THIS "WOULD" CHANGES XXII. THE BITTER PAST XXIII. THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME XXIV. FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL, AND EVER XXV. WHOM THE FATES HAVE MARKED XXVI. O WICKED WIT AND GIFT XXVII. UPON A CHURCH BENCH XXVIII. BEDECKING ORNAMENTS OF PRAISE XXIX. WEIGHING DELIGHT AND DOLE XXX. PARTED OUR FELLOWSHIP XXXI. HOW CHANCES MOCK XXXII. NOW HE IS FOR THE NUMBERS XXXIII. A MINT OF PHRASES IN HIS BRAIN XXXIV. WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED XXXV. THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED XXXVI. THE HEAVY MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT XXXVII. THIS IS NOT A BOON THE PURITANS I AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT Henry VIII., i. 3. "We are all the children of the Puritans," Mrs. Herman said smiling. "Of course there is an ethical strain in all of us." Her cousin, Philip Ashe, who wore the dress of a novice from the Clergy House of St. Mark, regarded her with a serious and doubtful glance. "But there is so much difference between you and me," he began. Then he hesitated as if not knowing exactly how to finish his sentence. "The difference," she responded, "is chiefly a matter of the difference between action and reaction. You and I come of much the same stock ethically. My childhood was oppressed by the weight of the Puritan creed, and the reaction from it has made me what you feel obliged to call heretic; while you, with a saint for a mother, found even Puritanism hardly strict enough for you, and have taken to semi-monasticism. We are both pushed on by the same original impulse: the stress of Puritanism." She had been putting on her gloves as she spoke, and now rose and stood ready to go out. Philip looked at her with a troubled glance, rising also.