character. He sat for the
most part silent, his remarkable, penetrating eyes, lighting under his
grizzled brows, smiling at her, at the children, at the grandchildren.
And sometimes he would go to the corner table, where the four littlest
sat, and fetch one back to perch on his knee and pull at his white,
military mustache.

It was the children's day. Uproar greeted the huge white cylinder of
ice-cream borne by Katie, the senior of the elderly maids; uproar greeted
the cake; and finally there was a rush for the chocolates, little tablets
wrapped in tinfoil and tied with red and blue ribbon. After that, the
pandemonium left the dining-room, to spread itself over the spacious
house from the basement to the great playroom in the attic, where the
dolls and blocks and hobby-horses of the parental generation stoically
awaited the new.

Sometimes a visitor was admitted to this sacramental feat, the dearest
old gentleman in the world, with a great, high bridged nose, a slight
stoop, a kindling look, and snow white hair, though the top of his head
was bald. He sat on Mrs. Waring's right, and was treated with the
greatest deference by the elders, and with none at all by the children,
who besieged him. The bigger ones knew that he had had what is called a
history; that he had been rich once, with a great mansion of his own, but
now he lived on Dalton Street, almost in the slums, and worked among the
poor. His name was Mr. Bentley.

He was not there on the particular Sunday when this story opens,
otherwise the conversation about to be recorded would not have taken
place. For St. John's Church was not often mentioned in Mr. Bentley's
presence.

"Well, grandmother," said Phil Goodrich, who was the favourite
son-in-law, "how was the new rector to-day?"

"Mr. Hodder is a remarkable young man, Phil," Mrs. Waring declared,
"and delivered such a good sermon. I couldn't help wishing that you
and Rex and Evelyn and George had been in church."

"Phil couldn't go," explained the unmarried and sunburned Evelyn, "he had
a match on of eighteen holes with me."

Mrs. Waring sighed.

"I can't think what's got into the younger people these days that they
seem so indifferent to religion. Your father's a vestryman, Phil, and
I believe it has always been his hope that you would succeed him. I'm
afraid Rex won't succeed his father," she added, with a touch of regret
and a glance of pride at her husband. "You never go to church, Rex.
Phil does