down into the water
and lay hold of him, Mr. Morelock. That means personal contact, personal
association."

The young man was clearly bewildered. His experience thus far had not
been enriched by many intimacies with clear-eyed young women who calmly
defined the larger humanities for him.

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand your point of view," he demurred.

"Don't you? I'm not sure that I can explain just what I mean. But it
seems to me that really to help any one, you must know that one; not
superficially, as people meet in ordinary ways, but intimately. And you
can't hope to do that if you hold aloof; if you--if you--pose as a
minister all the time." The word was not flattering, but she could lay
hold of no other.

"Oh, I hope I don't do that!" he laughed. "But to creep around
underground in a sooty coal-mine, a laughing-stock to those who know how
to do it--er--professionally--"

"The men have to do it as breadwinners, Mr. Morelock, and the most
ribald one of them wouldn't laugh at you. I wouldn't be afraid to
promise that you could fill St. John's, forbidding as its atmosphere is
to the average working-man, the very next Sunday after such a
visitation."

Now this young zealot was a man of imagination, hidebound only in his
traditions. Also, he was not above taking ideas where he found them.

"Really, Miss Dabney, I'm not sure but you have hold of the matter at
the practical end," he conceded. "I--I'd like to talk with you further
about it, when we have time. Do you suppose I could get permission to go
into the mines during working-hours?"

"Certainly you could--for the mere asking. We can speak to Mr. Caleb
Gordon about it after breakfast, if you wish. My! doesn't that rain
sting! I'm glad we are at home."

"Yes; and it is freezing as it falls. At home in New England we should
say it was too cold to rain."

"It is never too cold or too anything to rain here," she said; and she
let him take her arm to help her up the slippery stone steps to the
stately portico.

A moment later the hospitable door of the manor house yawned for them,
and the warmth of the Major's welcome, the light and glow of the
crackling wood fires, and the solid comfort of surrounding stone walls
soon banished the memory of the small struggle with the elements.

"Oh, my deah suh! you are not going back to town this mo'ning!"
protested the warm-hearted Major Caspar, as the quartet was rising from
the breakfast-table an hour later.