where all are adjured to be as brief as possible in
witnessing for the Lord, because the time belongs to all the people, and
the Discipline forbids the feast to last more than ninety minutes. He
delivered this injunction to brevity with marked earnestness, and then
sat down abruptly.

There was some rather boisterous singing, during which the stewards,
beginning with the platform, passed plates of bread cut in small
cubes, and water in big plated pitchers and tumblers, about among
the congregation, threading their way between the long wooden benches
ordinarily occupied at this hour by the children of the Sunday-school,
and helping each brother and sister in turn. They held by the old
custom, here in Octavius, and all along the seats the sexes alternated,
as they do at a polite dinner-table.

Theron impassively watched the familiar scene. The early nervousness had
passed away. He felt now that he was not in the least afraid of these
people, even with the Presiding Elder thrown in. Folks who sang with
such unintelligence, and who threw themselves with such undignified
fervor into this childish business of the bread and water, could not
be formidable antagonists for a man of intellect. He had never realized
before what a spectacle the Methodist love-feast probably presented to
outsiders. What must they think of it!

He had noticed that the Soulsbys sat together, in the centre and toward
the front. Next to Brother Soulsby sat Alice. He thought she looked pale
and preoccupied, and set it down in passing to her innate distaste for
the somber garments she was wearing, and for the company she perforce
found herself in. Another head was in the way, and for a time Theron did
not observe who sat beside Alice on the other side. When at last he saw
that it was Levi Gorringe, his instinct was to wonder what the lawyer
must be saying to himself about these noisy and shallow enthusiasts. A
recurring emotion of loyalty to the simple people among whom, after all,
he had lived his whole life, prompted him to feel that it wasn't wholly
nice of Gorringe to come and enjoy this revelation of their foolish
side, as if it were a circus. There was some vague memory in his mind
which associated Gorringe with other love-feasts, and with a cynical
attitude toward them. Oh, yes! he had told how he went to one just for
the sake of sitting beside the girl he admired--and was pursuing.

The stewards had completed their round, and the loud, discordan