choir? He is a
confessed infidel. I do not believe our rector knows it. I do not
think he would allow it. Mr. Francis just drifted into the choir when
we needed a basso very much. But, when you think of it, isn't it
blasphemy to take the name of the Lord, whom he professes not to
believe in, so solemnly upon his lips in church?"

Winifred consented that so it seemed to her.

Then a sudden recollection amused Miss Forrester. "Speaking of
worshipers," she said, "now there is my precious Cousin Dick. How do
you think he occupied himself in the midst of Morning Prayer a couple
of Sundays ago? The rogue! I certainly was keeping the run of the
service, but it was edifying to see his head bowed so devoutly until he
passed a slip of paper over to me. What do you think was on it? Not a
suddenly inspired hymn, but some doggerel lines about

"'A certain young woman
Who sang high soprano.'

"I looked daggers at him, but of course he saw I wanted to laugh. Then
he looked such a picture of rapt piety! Oh, he is a _case_!" And
Adele gave way to the laughter she had smothered in church.

Winifred smiled, too, as she thought of the irrepressibly merry youth.
But her pleasure was not as unmixed as it would have been three days
before. Henceforth, any jest to be quite enjoyed must be free from
taint of irreverence toward holy things. She had "begun to know God,"
and the knowledge gave a sensitiveness to the honor of His name and the
things of His house.

Adele recovered from her mirth and resumed the subject seriously.

"I am afraid we are sorry worshipers, when you come to look at it," she
said. "If our office is really such a sacred one--and I see it must
be, if we take it seriously--why, then, we ought to be pretty good
people; earnest, and reverent, and all that, I mean. But it doesn't
seem to be our distinguishing trait," and she smiled. "Not mine, at
least. I ought not to generalize too much. I am sure there are
persons in our choirs who live beautiful, devoted lives; but the lot I
fraternize with mostly are not likely to go to the stake just yet for
their piety. What awfully jolly dances the Emmanuel church choir gave
last winter! I was invited two or three times and went. But you know
it has struck me once or twice as a little odd that we church singers,
_as such_, should go into that sort of thing. If some of us should
stray into it individually it's nothing remarkable, I suppose. But
isn't