this
kind of fury that cloaks itself in the guise of outraged piety is very
trying. No sooner did father read your letter than he strode in upon me
like a grey-bearded firebrand. The offending letter was crushed in his
hand, and his glasses were akimbo on his nose, the way they always are
when he is perturbed. I spare you the details, but from the nature of his
questions you might have thought he was examining you through me for a
licence to preach. I did not try to deceive him in regard to your views,
but my own impression of them is so nebulous that the very vagueness of my
replies increased his alarm. Nor did I protest at the abuse he heaped upon
your absent head. For I know how wickedly and unscrupulously you acted in
the felony of my love, and there was a certain humorous satisfaction in
hearing father give a "philosophic proposition" to your criminality. My
only prayer was that he might not ask me if I loved you. Philip, I would
rather live on bread and water a week than confess it to any living man
besides yourself. But father has dwelt too long outside the realm of
romance to ask that very natural question. Finally I protested feebly:
"But how can it vitally affect a woman's happiness whether or not her
husband accepts the doctrine of repentance just as you do? Can he not love
and cherish his wife even if he does question the veracity of Jonah's
whaling experience?" But when I looked up and saw his face, I was ashamed,
and ran and kissed him, and straightened his glasses so that he could see
me with both eyes. But, dear Heart, his eyes were too full of tears to
fire upon me. And as I sat there upon the arm of his chair, twisting his
sacred beard, this is what he told me. When my mother died, he said, and
left me a little puckered pink mite in his arms, he had solemnly dedicated
me to God. And he declared, moreover, that he could not be faithless to
his vow by giving me in marriage to an infidel. Being an infidel, Philip,
is much worse than being a plain heathen; an infidel is a heathen raised
to the sixteenth power of iniquity! Now I rarely quote Scripture, for I
have too much guile in me to justify the liberty, but I could not refrain
from mentioning Abraham's dilemma, it seemed so appropriate to the
occasion,--how when he was about to offer up Isaac, he saw a little
he-goat suggestively nearby fastened among the thorns; and I suggested
that instead of sacrificing me he should take the widow Smith's little
Johnni