re an infinite
significance.

Then, not much after that, say three or four minutes, they were all of
a sudden back in town again, running along Plutoria Avenue, and to the
rector's surprise the motor was stopping outside the manse, and
Catherine was saying, "Oh, thank you ever so much, Philippa; it was
just heavenly!" which showed that the afternoon had had its religious
features after all. "What!" said the rector's sister, as they moved off
again, "didn't you know? That's Catherine Dumfarthing!"

* * * * *

When the Rev. Fareforth Furlong arrived home at the rectory he spent an
hour or so in the deepest of deep thought in an armchair in his study.
Nor was it any ordinary parish problem that he was revolving in his
mind. He was trying to think out some means by which his sister Juliana
might be induced to commit the sin of calling on the daughter of a
presbyterian minister.

The thing had to be represented as in some fashion or other an act of
self-denial, a form of mortification of the flesh. Otherwise he knew
Juliana would never do it. But to call on Miss Catherine Dumfarthing
seemed to him such an altogether delightful and unspeakably blissful
process that he hardly knew how to approach the topic. So when Juliana
presently came home the rector could find no better way of introducing
the subject than by putting it on the ground of Philippa's marriage to
Miss Dumfarthing's father's trustee's nephew.

"Juliana," he said, "don't you think that perhaps, on account of
Philippa and Tom, you ought--or at least it might be best for you to
call on Miss Dumfarthing?"

Juliana turned to her brother as he laid aside her bonnet and her black
gloves.

"I've just been there this afternoon," she said.

There was something as near to a blush on her face as her brother had
ever seen.

"But she was not there!" he said.

"No," answered Juliana, "but Mr. Dumfarthing was. I stayed and talked
some time with him, waiting for her."

The rector gave a sort of whistle, or rather that blowing out of air
which is the episcopal symbol for it.

"Didn't you find him pretty solemn?" he said.

"Solemn!" answered his sister. "Surely, Edward, a man in such a calling
as his ought to be solemn."

"I don't mean that exactly," said the rector; "I mean--er--hard,
bitter, so to speak."

"Edward!" exclaimed Juliana, "how can you speak so. Mr. Dumfarthing
hard! Mr. Dumfarthing bitter! Why, Edward, the man is gentleness a