"Oh, that’s good," said Luke. "Well, I’ll be glad to see him." But his tone was not so enthusiastic as it had been, and his step hesitated half-way to the parlor door. The door was open. Through it Betty heard him, and through it she now hurried into the hall to meet him, her hands outstretched. "How splendid of you!" she was saying. "We’ve just been reading your letter in the paper, The papers are full of you, and you don’t know how proud we are to know you, and how proud that you come here to see us at such a busy time." Her cheeks were flushed, her brown eyes shone. Luke noted a little curl that escaped from the mass of golden hair, so like a saint’s glory to her head, and seemed to caress one coral ear. "It’s all nothing but my good luck," he said as he took both her hands in his and thought not half so much of her words as of the woman that uttered them. "But I didn’t expect your father’s approval." "You have it, anyway," she assured him. "Of course, he’s a Progressive, and he thinks you would have done better to come into his party; but he does admire your courage, and so does Mr. Nicholson." "Does he?" said Luke dryly. "I hope not: it might go to my head." He remembered that Nicholson believed in celibacy for the clergy, and he was glad of it. The young priest rose as his hostess and her new guest came into the Eighteen-Sixty parlor. He was a handsome man and his eyes were kindly, yet he had the face of an ascetic. "Miss Forbes is right," he said. "New York needs men with high convictions and the courage of them." "So does the Church," replied Luke heartily—"and she is getting them now." They sat down. "The Church," said Nicholson, "has always had them. What she lacked was the co-operation of such men in the practical world. If all of our millionaires were like some few of them, our work would be easy; but now we scarcely know which is more dangerous: the evil tyrant or the evil demagogue." He talked for some time in this strain, not to weariness, but with the completeness of the zealot. Nicholson regarded wealth as a sacred trust, a gift from God given to the great intellects of the world only that it might be administered for the benefit of the lesser of God’s creatures. He mentioned no specific instance, but he saw in many of the country’s rich men souls that were proving worthy of their trust and others that were using their money selfishly and even cruelly. For the former he had the highest regard, for the latter the severest condemnation; the spiritual and physical welfare of the poor he considered as the especial care of the more fortunate, and charity was not only the right of penury: it was the salvation of the rich. Betty listened to him with a rapt face; Luke honored him, but sincerely hoped that he would go. Fearing that this desire was becoming too patent, Luke said: "The Manhattan and Niagara people don’t seem to share your views."