she was a
simple and devout soul, loving husband and child and the poor people
with whom they lived. Doubtless she had looked more appropriate to her
surroundings in the tangled garden of her father's vicarage than in the
bleak Mission House of Lima Street; but inasmuch as she never thought
about her appearance it would have been a waste of time for anybody to
try to romanticize her. The civilizing effect of her presence in the
slum was quickly felt; and though Lidderdale continued to scoff at the
advantages of civilization, he finally learnt to give a grudging
welcome to her various schemes for making the bodies of the flock as
comfortable as her husband tried to make their souls.

When Mark was born, his father became once more the prey of gloomy
doubt. The guardianship of a soul which he was responsible for bringing
into the world was a ceaseless care, and in his anxiety to dedicate his
son to God he became a harsh and unsympathetic parent. Out of that
desire to justify himself for having been so inconsistent as to take a
wife and beget a son Lidderdale redoubled his efforts to put the Lima
Street Mission on a permanent basis. The civilization of the slum, which
was attributed by pious visitors to regular attendance at Mass rather
than to Mrs. Lidderdale's gentleness and charm, made it much easier for
outsiders to explore St. Simon's parish as far as Lima Street. Money for
the great church he designed to build on a site adjoining the old
tabernacle began to flow in; and five years after his marriage
Lidderdale had enough money subscribed to begin to build. The
rubbish-strewn waste-ground overlooked by the back-windows of the
Mission House was thronged with workmen; day by day the walls of the new
St. Wilfred's rose higher. Fifteen years after Lidderdale took charge of
the Lima Street Mission, it was decided to ask for St. Wilfred's,
Notting Dale, to be created a separate parish. The Reverend Aylmer
Majendie had become a canon residentiary of Chichester and had been
succeeded as vicar by the Reverend L. M. Astill, a man more of the type
of Thurston and only too anxious to help his senior curate to become a
vicar, and what is more cut L200 a year off his own net income in doing
so.

But when the question arose of consecrating the new St. Wilfred's in
order to the creation of a new parish, the Bishop asked many questions
that were never asked about the Lima Street Mission. There were Stations
of the Cross reported to