he stood still one minute,
as though he was thunderstruck by the sight of her,--not hesitating, you
know, but just amazed to see a woman looking like that,--and then he went
right up to her, and took that dirty, screeching child out of her arms;
and then, I'm damned if he didn't give her his arm and walk down the
street with her!"

Mr. Dale felt the shock of it. "Ah!" he said, with a quick indrawn
breath.

"Yes," continued Dick, who enjoyed telling a good story, "he walked down
that crowded street with that drunken, painted creature on his arm. I
suppose he thought she'd fall, and hurt herself and the child. Naturally
everybody looked at him, but I don't believe he even saw them. We stood
there and watched them out of sight--and--but of course you know how
fellows talk! Though so long as he was a _minister_"--Dick grinned
significantly, and looked at Mr. Dale for an answer; but there was none.

Suddenly the old man stood still and gravely lifted his hat: "He's a good
man," he said, and then trudged on again, with his head bent and his
hands clasped behind him.

Mr. Forsythe looked at him, and whistled. "Jove!" he exclaimed, "it
doesn't strike you as it did Dr. Howe. I told him, and he said, 'Bless my
soul, hadn't the man sense enough to call a policeman?'"

But Mr. Dale had nothing more to say. The picture of John Ward, walking
through the crowded street with the woman who was a sinner upheld by his
strong and tender arm, was not forgotten; and when Dick had left him, and
he had lighted his slender silver pipe in the quiet of his basement
study, he said again, "He's a good man."

CHAPTER VIII.

It was one of those deliciously cold evenings in early autumn. All day
long the sparkling sunshine-scented air had held an exhilaration like
wine, but now night had folded a thin mist across the hills, though the
clear darkness of the upper sky was filled with the keen white light of
innumerable stars.

A fire in the open grate in John Ward's study was pure luxury, for the
room did not really need the warmth. It was of that soft coal which
people in the Middle States burn in happy indifference to its dust-making
qualities, because of its charm of sudden-puffing flames, which burst
from the bubbling blackness with a singing noise, like the explosion of
an oak-gall stepped on unawares in the woods.

It had been a busy day for John, ending with the weekly prayer-meeting;
and to sit now in front of the glowing fire