usiness,
the thing that he set his heart upon and trained for. I wonder what he
would say, if he had the care of this great house."

"It is larger than most rectories," Olive made polite assent.

But swiftly Kathryn retrieved her blunder.

"Of course," she added; "I always have been accustomed to a large
house. It is only that this one seems to me inconvenient. The back
stairs are so very central, and the telephones are so badly placed, one
in the study, and the other away out in the back of the hall. Really,
you would think, to see them, that the rector and the servants were the
only ones to be considered, and not the housekeeper at all."

Stolidly regardless of the criticism, Olive returned to her former
theme. She did this of a distinct purpose, too. It seemed to her to be
quite incredible that the woman before her could be blind to her
husband's haggard face. None the less, watching Kathryn, she could not
in sincerity accuse her of any shamming.

"It really has worried us, my father and me, that Mr. Brenton hasn't
looked quite as strong lately, as when he came here," she insisted.

"Oh, I think he is quite well. Men," Kathryn gave a vindictive sort of
flap to the front breadths of her dressing gown; "never know what it is
to be really ill. I tell Scott, if he were in my place--"

In mercy to probabilities, Olive interrupted.

"Saint Peter's has grown so fast, since he came here," she said.

Kathryn promptly took umbrage at the singular number of the pronoun.

"I'm sure we've done our best," she answered tartly. "It has been hard
work, though, in such a dead old town as this."

"But, with all the college girls--" Olive was beginning.

Kathryn cut her short.

"They count for nothing in the parish. They just come to church, when
they get up in season; that's about all. Of course, it would be a good
thing if they did count for more. The poor old church is in need of
something young and lively; now and then it seems to me to be fairly
doddering. Poor Scott feels it, too. He can't help it. Every man and
woman in the congregation was born, ready made, with a whole set of
prejudices, born in a rut that nothing can break down. I tell him--"

Once more Olive interrupted. Indeed, it was her only method of driving
in an entering wedge of speech.

"That is what we old New Englanders love, Mrs. Brenton," she said, with
a sweetness that was almost acid. "Remember that we and our ancestors
have lived in these same