office
dignified the man to a degree that is hardly understood now. But Henry
Roberts's concern was not entirely a matter of social propriety; it was
a desire to propitiate this young man who was living in certain errors
of belief, so that he would be in a friendly attitude of mind and open
to the arguments which were always burning on the lips of Edward
Irving's follower. He did not mean to begin them until they were at
supper; so he and John Fenn sat in silence waiting Philippa's summons
to the dining-room. Neither of them had any small talk; Mr. Roberts
was making sure that he could trust his memory to repeat those wailing
cadences of the Voice, and John Fenn, still shaken by something he
could not understand that had been hidden in what he understood too
well--a sinner's indifference to grace--was trying to get back to his
serene, impersonal arrogance.

As for Philippa, she was frightened at her temerity in having invited
the minister to a Hannahless supper; her flutter of questions as to
"what" and "how" brought the old woman from her bed, in spite of the
girl's half-hearted protests that she "mustn't think of getting up!
Just tell me what to do," she implored, "I can manage. We are going to
have--TEA!"

"We always have tea," Hannah said, sourly; yet she was not really sour,
for, like William King and Dr. Lavendar, Hannah had discerned
possibilities in the Rev. John Fenn's pastoral visits. "Get your
Sunday-go-to-meeting dress on," she commanded, hunching a shawl over a
rheumatic shoulder and motioning the girl out of the kitchen.

Philippa, remorseful and breathless, ran quickly up to her room to put
on her best frock, smooth her shining hair down in two loops over her
ears, and pin her one adornment, a flat gold brooch, on the bosom of
her dress. She lifted her candle and looked at herself in the black
depths of the little swinging glass on her high bureau, and her face
fell into sudden wistful lines. "Oh, I do not look wicked," she
thought, despairingly.

John Fenn, glancing at her across the supper-table, had some such
thought himself; how strange that one who was so perverted in belief
should not betray perversion in her countenance. "On the contrary, her
face is pleasing," he said, simply. He feared, noticing the brooch,
that she was vain, as well as indifferent to her privileges; he
wondered if she had observed his new coat.

Philippa's vanity did not, at any rate, give her much courage; she
scar