to pass her life. Her admiration for him had gradually grown into
hero-worship. His anger, sometimes roused, had a terrible moral quality
that never failed to thrill her, and the Loyal Legion button on his
black frock coat seemed to her an epitome of his character. He sat for
the most part silent, his remarkable, penetrating eyes, lighting
under his grizzled brows, smiling at her, at the children, at the
grandchildren. And sometimes he would go to the corner table, where the
four littlest sat, and fetch one back to perch on his knee and pull at
his white, military mustache.

It was the children's day. Uproar greeted the huge white cylinder
of ice-cream borne by Katie, the senior of the elderly maids; uproar
greeted the cake; and finally there was a rush for the chocolates,
little tablets wrapped in tinfoil and tied with red and blue ribbon.
After that, the pandemonium left the dining-room, to spread itself over
the spacious house from the basement to the great playroom in the attic,
where the dolls and blocks and hobby-horses of the parental generation
stoically awaited the new.

Sometimes a visitor was admitted to this sacramental feat, the dearest
old gentleman in the world, with a great, high bridged nose, a slight
stoop, a kindling look, and snow white hair, though the top of his
head was bald. He sat on Mrs. Waring's right, and was treated with the
greatest deference by the elders, and with none at all by the children,
who besieged him. The bigger ones knew that he had had what is called
a history; that he had been rich once, with a great mansion of his own,
but now he lived on Dalton Street, almost in the slums, and worked among
the poor. His name was Mr. Bentley.

He was not there on the particular Sunday when this story opens,
otherwise the conversation about to be recorded would not have taken
place. For St. John's Church was not often mentioned in Mr. Bentley's
presence.

"Well, grandmother," said Phil Goodrich, who was the favourite
son-in-law, "how was the new rector to-day?"

"Mr. Hodder is a remarkable young man, Phil," Mrs. Waring declared, "and
delivered such a good sermon. I couldn't help wishing that you and Rex
and Evelyn and George had been in church."

"Phil couldn't go," explained the unmarried and sunburned Evelyn, "he
had a match on of eighteen holes with me."

Mrs. Waring sighed.

"I can't think what's got into the younger people these days that they
seem so indifferent to religion. Yo