outside his own heart. Even his family did not share his
belief. When he married, as he did when he was nearly fifty, his wife
was impatient with his Faith--indeed, fearful of it, and with
persistent, nagging reasonableness urged his return to the respectable
paths of Presbyterianism. To his pain, when his girl, his Philippa,
grew up she shrank from the emotion of his creed; she and her mother
went to the brick church under the locust-trees of Lower Ripple; and
when her mother died Philippa went there alone, for Henry Roberts, not
being permitted to bear witness in the Church, did so out of it, by
sitting at home on the Sabbath day, in a bare upper chamber, waiting
for the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It never came. The Tongues
never spoke. Yet still, while the years passed, he waited,
listening--listening--listening; a kindly, simple old man with mystical
brown eyes, believing meekly in his own unworth to hear again that
Sound from Heaven, as of a rushing, mighty wind, that had filled the
London Chapel, bowing human souls before it as a great wind bows the
standing corn!

It was late in the sixties that Henry Roberts brought this faith and
his Philippa to the stone house on the Perryville pike, where, after
some months had passed, they were discovered by the old and the young
ministers. The two clergymen met once or twice in their calls upon the
new-comer, and each acquired an opinion of the other: John Fenn said to
himself that the old minister was a good man, if he was an
Episcopalian; and Dr. Lavendar said to William King that he hoped there
would be a match between the "theolog" and Philippa.

"The child ought to be married and have a dozen children," he said;
"although Fenn's little sister will do to begin on--she needs mothering
badly enough. Yes, Miss Philly ought to be making smearkase and
apple-butter for that pale and excellent young man. He intimated that I
was a follower of the Scarlet Woman because I wore a surplice."

"Now look here! I draw the line at that sort of talk," the doctor said;
"he can lay down the law to me, all he wants to; but when it comes to
instructing you--"

"Oh, well, he's young," Dr. Lavendar soothed him; "you can't expect him
not to know everything at his age."

"He's a squirt," said William. In those days in Old Chester middle age
was apt to sum up its opinion of youth in this expressive word.

"We were all squirts once," said Dr. Lavendar, "and very nice boys we