on Sabbath mornings Philippa sat with her father, in the
silent upper chamber. At first Henry Roberts,
listening--listening--for the Voice, thought, rapturously, that at the
eleventh hour he was to win a soul--the most precious soul in his
world!--to his faith. But when, after a while, he questioned her, he
saw that this was not so; she stayed away from other churches, but not
because she cared for his church. This troubled him, for the faith he
had outgrown was better than no faith.

"Do you have doubts concerning the soundness of either of the
ministers--the old man or the young man?" he asked her, looking at her
with mild, anxious eyes.

"Oh no, sir," Philly said, smiling.

"Do you dislike them--the young man or the old man?"

"Oh no, father. I love--one of them."

"Then why not go to his church? Either minister can give you the seeds
of salvation; one not less than the other. Why not sit under either
ministry?"

"I don't know," Philippa said, faintly.

And indeed she did not know why she absented herself. She only knew two
things: that the young man seemed to disapprove of the old man; and
when she saw the young man in the pulpit, impersonal and holy, she
suffered. Therefore she would not go to hear either man.

When Dr. Lavendar came to call upon her father, he used to glance at
Philippa sometimes over his spectacles while Henry Roberts was arguing
about prophecies; but he never asked her why she stayed away from
church; instead, he talked to her about John Fenn, and he seemed
pleased when he heard that the young man was doing his duty in making
pastoral calls. "And I--I, unworthy as I was!" Henry Roberts would
say, "I heard the Voice, speaking through a sister's lips; and it said:
Oh, sinner! for what, for what, what can separate, separate, from the
love... Oh, nothing. Oh, nothing. Oh, nothing."

He would stare at Dr. Lavendar with parted lips. "I HEARD IT," he
would say, in a whisper.

And Dr. Lavendar, bending his head gravely, would be silent for a
respectful moment, and then he would look at Philippa. "You are
teaching Fenn's sister to sew?" he would say. "Very nice! Very nice!"

Philly saw a good deal of the sister that summer; the young minister,
recognizing Miss Philippa's fondness for Mary, and remembering a text
as to the leading of a child, took pains to bring the little girl to
Henry Roberts's door once or twice a week; and as August burned away
into September Philippa's pleasur