m when I'm
trying to talk to you."

Theron obeyed, and as he sank into the low seat, Sister Soulsby drew up
her chair, and put her hand on his shoulder. Her gaze rested upon his
with impressive steadiness.

"And now I want to talk seriously to you, as a friend," she began. "You
mustn't breathe to any living soul the shadow of a hint of this nonsense
about leaving the ministry. I could see how you were feeling--I saw the
book you were reading the first time I entered this room--and that made
me like you; only I expected to find you mixing up more worldly gumption
with your Renan. Well, perhaps I like you all the better for not having
it--for being so delightfully fresh. At any rate, that made me sail in
and straighten your affairs for you. And now, for God's sake, keep them
straight. Just put all notions of anything else out of your head. Watch
your chief men and women, and be friends with them. Keep your eye open
for what they think you ought to do, and do it. Have your own ideas as
much as you like, read what you like, say 'Damn' under your breath as
much as you like, but don't let go of your job. I've knocked about
too much, and I've seen too many promising young fellows cut their own
throats for pure moonshine, not to have a right to say that."

Theron could not be insensible to the friendly hand on his shoulder, or
to the strenuous sincerity of the voice which thus adjured him.

"Well," he said vaguely, smiling up into her earnest eyes, "if we agree
that it IS moonshine."

"See here!" she exclaimed, with renewed animation, patting his shoulder
in a brisk, automatic way, to point the beginnings of her confidences:
"I'll tell you something. It's about myself. I've got a religion of my
own, and it's got just one plank in it, and that is that the time to
separate the sheep from the goats is on Judgment Day, and that it can't
be done a minute before."

The young minister took in the thought, and turned it about in his mind,
and smiled upon it.

"And that brings me to what I'm going to tell you," Sister Soulsby
continued. She leaned back in her chair, and crossed her knees so
that one well-shaped and artistically shod foot poised itself close to
Theron's hand. Her eyes dwelt upon his face with an engaging candor.

"I began life," she said, "as a girl by running away from a stupid home
with a man that I knew was married already. After that, I supported
myself for a good many years--generally, at first, on the stag