of his visits to Park Street. Mr. Parr seemed to like to
have him there. And the very fact that the conversation rarely took
any vital turn oddly contributed to the increasing permanence of
the lien. To venture on any topic relating to the affairs of the day
were merely to summon forth the banker's dogmatism, and Hodder's own
opinions on such matters were now in a strange and unsettled state. Mr.
Parr liked best to talk of his treasures, and of the circumstances during
his trips abroad that had led to their acquirement. Once the banker had
asked him about parish house matters.

"I'm told you're working very hard--stirring up McCrae. He needs it."

"I'm only trying to study the situation," Hodder replied. "I don't think
you quite do justice to McCrae," he added; "he's very faithful, and seems
to understand those people thoroughly."

Mr. Parr smiled.

"And what conclusions have you come to? If you think the system should
be enlarged and reorganized I am willing at any time to go over it with
you, with a view to making an additional contribution. Personally, while
I have sympathy for the unfortunate, I'm not at all sure that much of the
energy and money put into the institutional work of churches isn't
wasted."

"I haven't come to any conclusions--yet," said the rector, with a touch
of sadness. "Perhaps I demand too much--expect too much."

The financier, deep in his leather chair under the shaded light, the tips
of his fingers pressed together, regarded the younger man thoughtfully,
but the smile lingered in his eyes.

"I told you you would meet problems," he said.

II

Hodder's cosmos might have been compared, indeed, to that set forth in
the Ptolemaic theory of the ancients. Like a cleverly carved Chinese
object of ivory in the banker s collection, it was a system of spheres,
touching, concentric, yet separate. In an outer space swung Mr. Parr;
then came the scarcely less rarefied atmosphere of the Constables and
Atterburys, Fergusons, Plimptons, Langmaids, Prestons, Larrabbees, Greys,
and Gores, and then a smaller sphere which claims but a passing mention.
There were, in the congregation of St. John's, a few people of moderate
means whose houses or apartments the rector visited; people to whom
modern life was increasingly perplexing.

In these ranks were certain maiden ladies and widows who found in church
work an outlet to an otherwise circumscribed existence. Hodder met them
continually in his daily