a minute or so," and he settled
himself down in a still more comfortable position yet, and seemed to
enjoy himself greatly.

Ned, seeing that remonstrance was altogether useless, was forced to hold
his tongue, and hunt up another chair with the best grace he could
assume, after which Charlie gave an interesting account of his
adventures.

Then they conversed on different subjects, and soon their conversation
turned on the miner's dispute, and the scene their father had described
to them on the preceding evening.

"I'm sure _I_ said Min was a brick all along. I said they were all
bricks, didn't I?" exclaimed Archie, appealing to Minnie.

"To be sure you did," she corroborated. "But I don't know that they
would have regarded it as any great compliment, if indeed they would
have understood it as such at all, so I didn't apprise them of your
delicate attention--the girls, I mean." Archie pondered over this for
several minutes, and seemed to come to the conclusion that perhaps it
was better as it was, at any rate, he did not pursue the subject
further.

"Well, I must confess," remarked Ned, "that I never half believed there
was any practical use in Christianity till now."

"Practical use of Christianity," repeated Seymour, disdainfully, "the
commonest charity would have had the same result."

"And what is the commonest charity but the essence of Christianity?"
asked Minnie.

"Fiddlestick!" replied Seymour, irreverently. "Religion is based upon
the difference, in an ecclesiastical sense, 'twixt tweedledum and
tweedledee."

"Not the true religion of Christ," asserted Minnie, "not _my_ religion."

"Then what is your definition of religion?" asked Charlie, who had been
silent hitherto on the subject. "It deserves a voice, you know, since it
has 'justified its existence by its success' in the words of father's
favourite maxim."

"The religion of Christ does not justify itself by success," corrected
Minnie, "since it is in itself the fountain of justice as well as of
mercy, it requires no justification, but its adoption justifies all who
receive it."

"Well, but tell us what it _is_, according to your interpretation?"

"According to my interpretation, which is also that of the New
Testament," answered Minnie, "Pure religion and undefiled, is to visit
the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep one's self
unspotted from the world."

"Well, that's simple enough at any rate. Is that your whole confes