h she usually met with playful incredulity.

'Ah, well,' she answered one day, 'I like dear old Mr. Crewe and his
pipes a great deal better than your Mr. Tryan and his Gospel. When I was
a little toddle, Mr. and Mrs. Crewe used to let me play about in their
garden, and have a swing between the great elm-trees, because mother had
no garden. I like people who are kind; kindness is my religion; and
that's the reason I like you, dear Mrs. Pettifer, though you are a
Tryanite.'

'But that's Mr. Tryan's religion too--at least partly. There's nobody can
give himself up more to doing good amongst the poor; and he thinks of
their bodies too, as well as their souls.'

'O yes, yes; but then he talks about faith, and grace, and all that,
making people believe they are better than others, and that God loves
them more than He does the rest of the world. I know he has put a great
deal of that into Sally Martin's head, and it has done her no good at
all. She was as nice, honest, patient a girl as need be before; and now
she fancies she has new light and new wisdom. I don't like those
notions.'

'You mistake him, indeed you do, my dear Mrs. Dempster; I wish you'd go
and hear him preach.'

'Hear him preach! Why, you wicked woman, you would persuade me to disobey
my husband, would you? O, shocking! I shall run away from you. Good-bye.'

A few days after this conversation, however, Janet went to Sally Martin's
about three o'clock in the afternoon. The pudding that had been sent in
for herself and 'Mammy,' struck her as just the sort of delicate morsel
the poor consumptive girl would be likely to fancy, and in her usual
impulsive way she had started up from the dinner table at once, put on
her bonnet, and set off with a covered plateful to the neighbouring
street. When she entered the house there was no one to be seen; but in
the little sideroom where Sally lay, Janet heard a voice. It was one she
had not heard before, but she immediately guessed it to be Mr. Tryan's.
Her first impulse was to set down her plate and go away, but Mrs. Martin
might not be in, and then there would be no one to give Sally that
delicious bit of pudding. So she stood still, and was obliged to hear
what Mr. Tryan was saying. He was interrupted by one of the invalid's
violent fits of coughing.

'It is very hard to bear, is it not?' he said when she was still again.
'Yet God seems to support you under it wonderfully. Pray for me, Sally,
that I may have strengt