f the rival churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph
as the autumn slowly faded into winter: during which time the elm trees
on Plutoria Avenue shivered and dropped their leaves and the chauffeurs
of the motors first turned blue in their faces and then, when the great
snows came, were suddenly converted into liveried coachmen with tall
bearskins and whiskers like Russian horseguards, changing back again to
blue-nosed chauffeurs the very moment of a thaw. During this time also
the congregation of the Reverend Fareforth Furlong was diminishing
month by month, and that of the Reverend Uttermust Dumfarthing was so
numerous that they filled up the aisles at the back of the church. Here
the worshippers stood and froze, for the minister had abandoned the use
of steam heat in St. Osoph's on the ground that he could find no
warrant for it.

During the same period other momentous things were happening, such as
that Juliana Furlong was reading, under the immediate guidance of Dr.
Dumfarthing, the History of the Progress of Disruption in the Churches
of Scotland in ten volumes; such also as that Catherine Dumfarthing was
wearing a green and gold winter suit with Russian furs and a Balkan hat
and a Circassian feather, which cut a wide swath of destruction among
the young men on Plutoria Avenue every afternoon as she passed.
Moreover by the strangest of coincidences she scarcely ever seemed to
come along the snow-covered avenue without meeting the Reverend
Edward--a fact which elicited new exclamations of surprise from them
both every day: and by an equally strange coincidence they generally
seemed, although coming in different directions, to be bound for the
same place; towards which they wandered together with such slow steps
and in such oblivion of the passers-by that even the children on the
avenue knew by instinct whither they were wandering.

It was noted also that the broken figure of Dr. McTeague had reappeared
upon the street, leaning heavily upon a stick and greeting those he met
with such a meek and willing affability, as if in apology for his
stroke of paralysis, that all who talked with him agreed that
McTeague's mind was a wreck.

"He stood and spoke to me about the children for at least a quarter of
an hour," related one of his former parishioners, "asking after them by
name, and whether they were going to school yet and a lot of questions
like that. He never used to speak of such things. Poor old McTeague,
I'm afraid he