"Dinner at six? As you were not in, and it did not seem any use
consulting the woman that was here, I am preparing for that hour."

"Well, ye see, Sarah, we have just been taking tea, with something to
it, but if--"

"Gentlemen prefer evening dinner, ma'am."

"Quite right, Sarah," burst in Carmichael in great glee; "tea-dinner is
the most loathsome meal ever invented, and we 'll never have it in the
Free Manse.

"That is an admirable woman, auntie," as Sarah disappeared, "with sound
views on important subjects. I 'll never ask again where she came
from; she is her own testimonial."

"You mauna be extravagant, John; Sarah hes never seen a manse before,
and I must tell her not to--"

"Ruin me, do you mean, by ten courses every evening, like the dinners
West-end philanthropists used to give our men to show them how to
behave at table? We 'll be very economical, only having meat twice a
week--salt fish the other days--but it will always be dinner."

"What ails you at tea-dinner, John? it's very tasty and homely."

"It's wicked, auntie, and has done more injury to religion than
drinking. No, I'm not joking--that is a childish habit--but giving
utterance to profound truth, which ought to be proclaimed on the
house-tops, or perhaps in the kitchens.

"Let me explain, and I 'll make it as plain as day--all heresy is just
bad thinking, and that comes from bad health, and the foundation of
health is food. A certain number of tea-dinners would make a man into
a Plymouth brother. It's a mere question of time.

"You see if a man's digestion is good he takes a cheerful view of
things; but if he is full of bile, then he is sure that everybody is
going to be lost except himself and his little set, and that's heresy.
Apologetics is just dietetics; now there 's an epigram made for you on
the spot, and you don't know what it means, so we 'll have a walk
instead."

His aunt knew what was coming, but was too late to resist, so she was
twice taken round the room for exercise, till she cried out for mercy,
and was left to rest while Carmichael went out to get an appetite for
that dinner.

Nothing was said during its progress, but when Sarah had finally
departed after her first triumph, won under every adverse circumstance
of strangeness and limited resources, Carmichael took his aunt's hand
and kissed it.

"It is an illuminated address you deserve, auntie, for such a paragon;
as it is, I shall be the benefactor of a P