exactly. There's an old joke--I'm not sure it's very
good--which distinguishes between the sects. It's said that the
Universalists think God is too good to damn them, and the Unitarians
think they are too good to be damned." Lottie shrank a little from him.
"Ah!" he cried, "you think it sounds wicked. Well, I'm sorry. I'm not
clerical enough to joke about serious things."

He looked into her face with a pretended anxiety. "Oh, I don't know,"
she said, with a little scorn. "I guess if you can stand it, I can."

"I'm not sure that I can. I'm afraid it's more in keeping with an
actor's profession than my own. Why," he added, as if to make a
diversion, "should you have thought I was an actor?"

"I suppose because you were clean-shaved; and your pronunciation. So
Englishy."

"Is it? Perhaps I ought to be proud. But I'm not an Englishman. I am a
plain republican American. May I ask if you are English?"

"Oh!" said Lottie. "As if you thought such a thing. We're from Ohio."

Mr. Breckon said, "Ah!" Lottie could not make out in just what sense.

By this time they were leaning on the rail of the promenade, looking
over at what little was left of Long Island, and she said, abruptly: "I
think I will go and see how my father is getting along."

"Oh, do take me with you, Miss Kenton!" Mr. Breckon entreated. "I am
feeling very badly about that poor old joke. I know you don't think well
of me for it, and I wish to report what I've been saying to your father,
and let him judge me. I've heard that it's hard to live up to Ohio
people when you're at your best, and I do hope you'll believe I have not
been quite at my best. Will you let me come with you?"

Lottie did not know whether he was making fun of her or not, but she
said, "Oh, it's a free country," and allowed him to go with her.

His preface made the judge look rather grave; but when he came to the
joke, Kenton laughed and said it was not bad.

"Oh, but that isn't quite the point," said Mr. Breckon. "The question
is whether I am good in repeating it to a young lady who was seeking
serious instruction on a point of theology."

"I don't know what she would have done with the instruction if she
had got it," said the judge, dryly, and the young man ventured in her
behalf:

"It would be difficult for any one to manage, perhaps."

"Perhaps," Kenton assented, and Lottie could see that he was thinking
Ellen would know what to do with it.

She resented that, and she was in