effect of Wall Street upon young men. Your mother did not
approve of Sunday newspapers."

During the rest of the meal, although he made a valiant attempt to hold
his own, Mr. Spence was, so to speak, outlawed. Robert and Joshua must
have had a secret sympathy for him. One of them mentioned the Vicomte.

"The Vicomte is a foreigner," declared Mrs. Holt. "I am in no sense
responsible for him."

The Vicomte was at that moment propped up in bed, complaining to his
valet about the weakness of the coffee. He made the remark (which he
afterwards repeated to Honora) that weak coffee and the Protestant
religion seemed inseparable; but he did not attempt to discover the
whereabouts, in Sutton, of the Church of his fathers. He was not in the
best of humours that morning, and his toilet had advanced no further
when, an hour or so later, he perceived from behind his lace curtains
Mr. Howard Spence, dressed with comparative soberness, handing Honora
into the omnibus. The incident did not serve to improve the cynical mood
in which the Vicomte found himself.

Indeed, the Vicomte, who had a theory concerning Mr. Spence's
church-going, was not far from wrong. As may have been suspected, it
was to Honora that credit was due. It was Honora whom Mr. Spence
sought after breakfast, and to whom he declared that her presence alone
prevented him from leaving that afternoon. It was Honora who told him
that he ought to be ashamed of himself. And it was to Honora, after
church was over and they were walking homeward together along the dusty
road, that Mr. Spence remarked by way of a delicate compliment that "the
morning had not been a total loss, after all!"

The little Presbyterian church stood on a hillside just outside of the
village and was, as far as possible, the possession of the Holt family.
The morning sunshine illuminated the angels in the Holt memorial window,
and the inmates of the Holt Institution occupied all the back pews. Mrs.
Joshua played the organ, and Susan, with several young women and a young
man with a long coat and plastered hair, sang in the choir. The sermon
of the elderly minister had to do with beliefs rather than deeds, and
was the subject of discussion at luncheon.

"It is very like a sermon I found in my room," said Honora.

"I left that book in your room, my dear, in the hope that you would not
overlook it," said Mrs. Holt, approvingly. "Joshua, I wish you would
read that sermon aloud to us."

"Oh, do, Mr.