Once in her private sitting-room the matron began, low-voiced, with an occasional glance at the closed door, as if to make certain that no curious inmate lurked behind it: "If Harriet Blake doesn't grow more sensible very soon I shall certainly go crazy; I invited you, Mr. Freeland, to dinner to-day because Harriet used to like your prayers in the afternoon, and it may help her to talk to you--but I don't know. She's a very obstinate old lady. The whole house talks about nothing else, and she's just morbid enough to like it. They gossip about her and fight about her till the air is blue with it. It was bad enough at election time, but religion is worse than politics." The pastor made as if he would interrupt, but she overbore him. "If you can't stop her she must go home to her niece, though she can't really afford to keep her and oughtn't to be asked----" "Do I understand that Harriet is in doubt--has lost her Christian faith?" "Oh, well--no; but in a way I suppose she has. She says that she--she can't see--in fact, she doesn't believe any more in the Holy Ghost!" "Doesn't _believe_ in h--in it?" Mr. Freeland was absolutely unprepared for precisely this form of agnosticism, and showed it. "She says she doesn't see any sense in it," responded Mrs. Markham, briefly. "Oh--ah, yes!" The pastor looked vaguely over her head. There was a pause, and then he gathered himself together. "But this--this is all wrong!" he said forcibly. "So we tell her," replied the matron. "It is sinful--it is extremely dangerous!" he repeated, still more forcibly. "That's what the Widow Sheldon says," replied the matron. "She lectures her about it every meal, and Harriet can't stand it. She says she can't help what she believes, and I can't blame her for that." "How long----" "She's been so for two weeks now, and she gets worse and worse. I had the Methodist minister--Harriet used to attend that church--up to talk to her about it, to see if she'd feel better, and he talked for four hours. Harriet sat as still as a stone, he said, and never moved or paid the least attention to him. Finally he asked her why she didn't answer, and she said he hadn't asked her opinion that she could see. So he asked her what it was, and she said that the Lord Almighty created the earth and that his Son, the Redeemer, saved it, and she didn't see anything more for the Holy Ghost to do. And everything that he told her she said one or the other could do perfectly well alone! And the angrier Mr. Dent got, the calmer Harriet was, I suppose, for he left in a rage, almost--I suppose it was trying, even for a minister--and when I went up to Harriet she seemed very calm. She told me triumphantly that the last thing she did was to show him that big Bible of hers with the picture in the front, where she's crossed out the figure of the dove with ink, and to tell him that she was no Papist, to worship graven images of birds!"