y have been assisted. And in a
conversation with her last week Miss Mallory expressed herself in a very
sad way about foreign missions. Her father's idea, again, no doubt--but
it is all very distressing. The Vicar doubts"--Miss Maria spoke warily,
bringing her face very close to the gray curls--"whether she has ever
been confirmed."

This final stroke, however, fell flat. Mrs. Roughsedge showed no
emotion. "Most of my aunts," she said, stoutly, "were never confirmed,
and they were good Christians and communicants all their lives."

Miss Maria's expression showed that this reference to a preceding
barbaric age of the Church had no relevance to the existing order
of things.

"Of course," she added, hastily, "I do not wish to make myself
troublesome or conspicuous in any way. I merely mention these things as
explaining why the Vicar felt bound to make a stand. The Church feeling
in this parish has been so strong it would, indeed, be a pity if
anything occurred to weaken it."

Mrs. Roughsedge gave a doubtful assent. As to the Church feeling, she
was not so clear as Miss Bertram. One of her chief friends was a
secularist cobbler who lived under the very shadow of the church. The
Miss Bertrams shuddered at his conversation. Mrs. Roughsedge found him
racy company, and he presented to her aspects of village life and
opinion with which the Miss Bertrams were not at all acquainted.

* * * * *

As the mother and son approached the old house in the sunset light, its
aspect of mellow and intimate congruity with the woods and fields about
it had never been more winning. The red, gray, and orange of its old
brickwork played into the brown and purples of its engirdling trees,
into the lilacs and golds and crimsons of the western sky behind it,
into the cool and quiet tones of the meadows from which it rose. A
spirit of beauty had been at work fusing man's perishable and passing
work with Nature's eternal masterpiece; so that the old house had in it
something immortal, and the light which played upon it something gently
personal, relative, and fleeting. Winter was still dominant; a northeast
wind blew. But on the grass under the spreading oaks which sheltered the
eastern front a few snow-drops were out. And Diana was gathering them.

She came toward her visitors with alacrity. "Oh! what a long time since
you have been to see me!"

Mrs. Roughsedge explained that she had been entertaining some relat