. "Yes, that's the way we're built. We spend
our lives doing that sort of thing."

"I don't know that you would precisely grasp my meaning," said the young
minister, with a polite effort in his words to mask the untoward side of
the suggestion. "It is a matter of conscience with me; and I am pained
and shocked at myself."

Sister Soulsby drummed for an absent moment with her thin, nervous
fingers on the desk-top. "I guess maybe you'd better go and lie down
again," she said gently. "You're a sick man, still, and it's no good
your worrying your head just now with things of this sort. You'll see
them differently when you're quite yourself again."

"No, no," pleaded Theron. "Do let us have our talk out! I'm all right.
My mind is clear as a bell. Truly, I've really counted on this talk with
you."

"But there's something else to talk about, isn't there, besides--besides
your conscience?" she asked. Her eyes bent upon him a kindly pressure as
she spoke, which took all possible harshness from her meaning.

Theron answered the glance rather than her words. "I know that you are
my friend," he said simply.

Sister Soulsby straightened herself, and looked down upon him with a new
intentness. "Well, then," she began, "let's thrash this thing out right
now, and be done with it. You say it's hurt your conscience to do
just one little hundredth part of what there was to be done here. Ask
yourself what you mean by that. Mind, I'm not quarrelling, and I'm not
thinking about anything except just your own state of mind. You think
you soiled your hands by doing what you did. That is to say, you wanted
ALL the dirty work done by other people. That's it, isn't it?"

"The Rev. Mr. Ware sat up, in turn, and looked doubtingly into his
companion's face.

"Oh, we were going to be frank, you know," she added, with a pleasant
play of mingled mirth and honest liking in her eyes.

"No," he said, picking his words, "my point would rather be that--that
there ought not to have been any of what you yourself call this--this
'dirty work.' THAT is my feeling."

"Now we're getting at it," said Sister Soulsby, briskly. "My dear
friend, you might just as well say that potatoes are unclean and unfit
to eat because manure is put into the ground they grow in. Just look at
the case. Your church here was running behind every year. Your people
had got into a habit of putting in nickels instead of dimes, and letting
you sweat for the difference. That's a h