ked. A calm contentment
beamed upon her mobile face, and Hubert could not help it that his
sharp eye, formed to detect minutiae, printed upon his mind even the
details of the picture she made, sitting so quietly there. Soft,
lustrous, black silk became well the figure which a life of gentle
inactivity caused to incline to corpulence, while a modest show of
exquisite lace relieved its somberness. There was just a tiny glitter
of costly gems, not too vulgarly showy for church, and the most
suitable of bonnets crowned the graceful head, whose waves of soft
brown hair still repudiated silver.

The minister's text led him to heaven at this point, and he drew it in
sentimental lines; a place whose essential light was not so much the
Lamb as other things; a place of reunited friends, of congenial
occupations, of tastes gratified, and of knowledge ever widening. He
offered no uncomfortable suggestion that any of his hearers might fail
of entering there.

Hubert saw among his hearers abstracted faces not a few; interested,
studious faces; and hungry faces which looked their longing for meat
not found as yet in the Lord's house. Among the last class he noticed
in one of the front pews a man, evidently an artisan, whose deep, large
eyes looked yearningly toward the pulpit with an appeal for bread,
while from it there came, through fine and learned discourse, to his
untutored mind a stone. His face smote Hubert with a sudden pity, and
a hunger crept into his own heart, not alone to know Christ, but to
make Him known. He wondered if this man had ever seen Him as he had.
Oh, if he could only tell him of Him, and turn the misery of those
longing eyes into joy!

The sermon ended. It was never very long; for Doctor Schoolman well
knew that patience, that sits good-naturedly for hours at games or
races, or in the seats of a packed theater, has very short limits at
church. He never taxed it, nor himself, too far. So the closing hymn
was punctually sung, and the benediction was pronounced in tender tones
upon the congregation.

Mrs. Butterworth's curiosity blossomed afresh when the meeting was over
and she had the opportunity of speaking with Winifred and her mother.
She addressed herself to the former, to Mrs. Gray's mingled relief and
terror; relief that she herself was not called upon to find excuses,
and terror lest Winifred should make herself ridiculous.

"You were not in the choir this morning?" she said with a "why"