, and you ought
to go to the meeting to-morrow, and put it down."

"Easily said, my dear," responded Mr. Snow, "but you forget that Mr.
Belcher is Buffum's friend, and that it is impossible to carry any
measure against him in Sevenoaks. I grant that it ought not to be so. I
wish it were otherwise; but we must take things as they air."

"To take things as they air," was a cardinal aphorism in Mr. Snow's
budget of wisdom. It was a good starting-point for any range of
reasoning, and exceedingly useful to a man of limited intellect and
little moral courage. The real truth of the case had dawned upon Miss
Butterworth, and it had rankled in the breast of Mrs. Snow from the
beginning of his pointless talk. He was afraid of offending Robert
Belcher, for not only did his church need repairing, but his salary was
in arrears, and the wolf that had chased so many up the long hill to
what was popularly known as Tom Buffum's Boarding House he had heard
many a night, while his family was sleeping, howling with menace in the
distance.

Mrs. Snow rebelled, in every part of her nature, against the power which
had cowed her reverend companion. There is nothing that so goads a
spirited woman to madness as the realization that any man controls her
husband. He may be subservient to her--a cuckold even--but to be mated
with a man whose soul is neither his own nor wholly hers, is to her the
torment of torments.

"I wish Robert Belcher was hanged," said Mrs. Snow, spitefully.

"Amen! and my name is Butterworth," responded that lady, making sure
that there should be no mistake as to the responsibility for the
utterance.

"Why, mother!" exclaimed the three hisses Snow, in wonder.

"And drawn and quartered!" added Mrs. Snow, emphatically.

"Amen, again!" responded Miss Butterworth.

"Mrs. Snow! my dear! You forget that you are a Christian pastor's wife,
and that there is a stranger present."

"No, that is just what I don't forget," said Mrs. Snow. "I see a
Christian pastor afraid of a man of the world, who cares no more about
Christianity than he does about a pair of old shoes, and who patronizes
it for the sake of shutting its mouth against him. It makes me angry,
and makes me wish I were a man; and you ought to go to that meeting
to-morrow, as a Christian pastor, and put down this shame and
wickedness. You have influence, if you will use it. All the people want
is a leader, and some one to tell them the truth."

"Yes, father, I'm s