re. He couldn't
sing by himself any more than a crow, but he's got those sixths of his
down to a hair. Now that's machinery, management, organization. We take
these tunes, written by a devil-may-care Pole who was living with George
Sand openly at the time, and pass 'em off on the brethren for hymns.
It's a fraud, yes; but it's a good fraud. So they are all good frauds.
I say frankly that I'm glad that the change and the chance came to help
Soulsby and me to be good frauds."

"And the point is that I'm to be a good fraud, too," commented the young
minister.

She had risen, and he got to his feet as well. He instinctively sought
for her hand, and pressed it warmly, and held it in both his, with an
exuberance of gratitude and liking in his manner.

Sister Soulsby danced her eyes at him with a saucy little shake of the
head. "I'm afraid you'll never make a really GOOD fraud," she said. "You
haven't got it in you. Your intentions are all right, but your execution
is hopelessly clumsy. I came up to your bedroom there twice while you
were sick, just to say 'howdy,' and you kept your eyes shut, and all the
while a blind horse could have told that you were wide awake."

"I must have thought it was my wife," said Theron.

PART III

CHAPTER XVIII

When the lingering dusk finally settled down upon this long summer
evening, the train bearing the Soulsbys homeward was already some score
of miles on its way, and the Methodists of Octavius had nearly finished
their weekly prayer-meeting.

After the stirring events of the revival, it was only to be expected
that this routine, home-made affair should suffer from a reaction. The
attendance was larger than usual, perhaps, but the proceedings were
spiritless and tame. Neither the pastor nor his wife was present at
the beginning, and the class-leader upon whom control devolved made but
feeble headway against the spell of inertia which the hot night-air
laid upon the gathering. Long pauses intervened between the perfunctory
praise-offerings and supplications, and the hymns weariedly raised from
time to time fell again in languor by the wayside.

Alice came in just as people were beginning to hope that some one
would start the Doxology, and bring matters to a close. Her appearance
apparently suggested this to the class-leader, for in a few moments the
meeting had been dismissed, and some of the members, on their way out,
were shaking hands with their minister's wife, and