"It is of the greatest possible importance," he returned earnestly. "Of course you don't agree with me as to the importance of forms of worship, but suppose that it were your own church, and the question were of having a man put into a place so influential. Wouldn't you be troubled if one were likely to be chosen who taught what you regarded as heresy?" She smiled on him still, but he saw the seriousness in her eyes. "Yes," she said, "I suppose I should; but doesn't it ever occur to you, Philip, that we are all too much inclined to feel that everything is going wrong if Providence doesn't work in our way? We can't help, I suppose, the habit of regarding our plans as somehow essential to the proper management of the universe." He laughed and shook his head. "You always had a most effective way of taking down my conceit," he responded. "I don't mean that it is necessary that Father Frontford shall be bishop because I want him, but"-- "But because you believe in him," his mother interrupted with a little twinkle in her eye. "Well, we cannot do better than to follow our convictions, I suppose." She ended with a sigh, and Philip knew that it was because into her mind came the sadness she felt at his defection from the faith of his fathers. "Yes, you trained me from the cradle to do what I thought right without considering the consequences." They fell into more general talk after that; and after the news of the family and the neighborhood had been pretty well exhausted, Mrs. Ashe said:-- "I have asked Alice Singleton to make me a visit." "Alice Singleton! Why, mother, I cannot think of a person I should have supposed it less likely you would want to stay with you." "I'm afraid that I don't want her very much; but she wrote me that she was very lonely, that she hadn't any plans, and that Boston seemed to her a very homesick place. Her mother was my nearest friend, you know; and if Alice needs friendship it's very little for me to do for her." "I didn't know she'd been in Boston," Philip commented thoughtfully. "She never seemed to me honest, mother. I never could be charitable to her at all." The sweet face of his mother took on a curious expression of mingled amusement and contrition. "If I must confess it, Phil," she said, "neither could I; and I'm afraid that there was more notion of doing penance in my asking her than of real hospitality. She is after all not to blame for her manner, and no doubt we do her wrong." "If you have come to doing penance, mother, there's no knowing how soon you will be with me." "No, Phil," she answered softly, "do you remember what Monica told her son? 'Not where he is, shalt thou be, but where thou art he shall be.'" He shook his head, sighing. "I ought not to have touched on that matter, mother. You know that I am trying to follow my conscience."