urgently. "That's what I want to discover. There can't
be any harm in going to church!"

"Oh, can't there, just? That's the whole crux of the matter. You went
to the wrong church!"

There was a pause of stunned surprise while Margot gasped, and Ron's
sleepy eyes brightened with curiosity.

"The wrong church! How can that be? They are both Scotch
Presbyterians? There is no difference between them?"

"Only this difference, that the members of one kirk are hardly on
speaking terms with the members of the other! That their leaders are at
law together in the Courts, and that feeling runs so high, even in this
sleepy hollow, that Mrs McNab, being a Free, refuses to sell milk to
the `Wees,' and is shamed to the heart to think that a guest living
under her house-roof should have condescended to attend their service.
It will be all over the Glen this afternoon that the bonny lady fra the
inn chose to give her offering of siller to the `Wees,' and they will
bear themselves haughtily in consequence. Mrs McNab feels that she has
been humiliated the day in the eyes of the neighbourhood. No wonder she
looks coldly upon you!"

Margot flushed with resentment and indignation, but before she could
speak Ron burst into impetuous speech.

"They quarrel? Up here? A handful of men and women among the great
mountains? How can they do it? How can they harbour ill-feeling?

"And what can they quarrel about? There must be such tiny, trivial
differences. I am thankful I am not a Dissenter!" cried Margot proudly.
"There are so many sects that one gets muddled among them all, and even
in the same one it appears that there are differences! I am thankful
that I belong to the Church."

The Chieftain looked at her quietly.

"To which Church?"

"The Church of England, of course."

"Oh!" He elevated his light eyebrows expressively. "Because its
members have no quarrels with one another?"

Margot frowned uneasily.

"Oh, well--I suppose they have. But at the worst there are two parties,
as compared to a dozen. You cannot deny that we are more united?"

"I should not boast too much about the unity of a Church in which civil
war is permanently in progress; and what about charity and humility of
mind? Suppose now, suppose for a moment that a family of strangers come
to live in the house next your own in town, and you discover among other
things that they are Dissenters. How does it influence your attitude
towards them?