I suppose it's an honest delusion
on the part of some people and a mixture of mistake and imposture on
the part of others."

"You have made a pretty good diagnosis, if you are not a physician,"
said Dr. Beswick, laughing, partly at Phillida's characterization of
Christian Science and partly at his own reply, which seemed to him a
remark that skillfully combined wit with a dash of polite flattery.
"But, Miss Callender,--I beg your pardon for saying it,--people call you
a faith-doctor."

"Yes; I know," said Phillida, compressing her lips.

"Did you not treat this Schulenberg girl as a faith-healer?"

"I prayed for her as a friend," said Phillida, "and encouraged her to
believe that she might be healed if she could exercise faith. She _did_
get much better."

"I know, I know," said the doctor in an offhand way; "a well-known
result of strong belief in cases of nerve disease. But, pardon me, you
have had other cases that I have heard of. Now don't you think that the
practice of faith-healing for--for--compensation makes you a
practitioner?"

"For compensation?" said Phillida, with a slight gesture of impatience.
"Who told you that I took money?"

It was the doctor's turn to be confounded.

"I declare, I don't know. Don't you take pay, though?"

"Not a cent have I ever taken directly or indirectly." Phillida's
already overstrained sensitiveness on this subject now broke forth into
something like anger. "I would not accept money for such a service for
the world," she said. "In making such an unwarranted presumption you
have done me great wrong. I am a Sunday-school teacher and mission
worker. Such services are not usually paid for, and such an assumption
on your part is unjustifiable. If you had only informed yourself better,
Dr. Beswick--"

"I am very sorry," broke in the doctor. "I didn't mean to be offensive.
I--"

"Indeed, Miss Callender," said Mrs. Beswick, speaking in a pleasant,
full voice and with an accent that marked her as not a New Yorker, "he
didn't mean to be disrespectful. The doctor is a gentleman; he couldn't
be disrespectful to a lady intentionally. He didn't know anything but
just what folks say, and they speak of you as the faith-doctor and the
woman doctor, you see. You must forgive the mistake."

This pleading of a wife in defense of her husband touched a chord in
Phillida and excited an emotion she could not define. There was that in
her own heart which answered to this conjugal champion