s perfect in her manners.'

'I haven't tried _her_,' said the other; 'but isn't he pig-headed? And
isn't he radical, think you? They all are; they always were, from the
days of Cromwell and Ireton.'

'But the child?--Esther knows nothing of politics.'

'It's in the blood,' said Mr. Dallas stroking unmoveably his long
whiskers. 'It's in the blood. I'll have no dissenters in my house. It
is fixed in the blood, and will not wash out.'

'I don't believe she knows what a dissenter means.'

'Your father is quite right,' put in Mrs. Dallas. 'I should not like a
dissenter in my family. I should not know how to get on with her. In
chance social intercourse it does not so much matter--though I feel the
difference even there; but in the family-- It is always best for like
to keep to like.'

'But these are only differences of form, mother.'

'Do you think so?' said Mrs. Dallas, drawing up her handsome person. 'I
believe in form, Pitt, for my part; and when you get to England you
will find that it is only the nobodies who dispense with it. But the
Church is more than form, I should think. You'll find the Archbishop of
Canterbury is something besides a form. And is our Liturgy a form?'

Pitt escaped from the discussion, half angry and half amused, but
seriously concerned about Esther. And meanwhile Esther was having her
own thoughts. She had come home from her blackberrying late, after Pitt
had gone home; and a little further on in the afternoon she had
followed him, to get her daily lesson. As the weather was warm all
windows were standing open; and the talkers within the house, being
somewhat eager and preoccupied in their minds, did not moderate their
voices nor pay any attention to what might be going on outside; and so
it happened that Esther's light step was not heard as it came past the
windows; and it followed very easily that one or two half sentences
came to her ear. She heard her own name, which drew her attention, and
then Mr. Dallas's declaration that he would have no dissenters in his
house. Esther paused, not certainly to listen, but with a sudden check
arising from something in the tone of the words. As she stood still in
doubt whether to go forward or not, a word or two more were spoken and
also heard; and with that Esther turned short about, left all thought
of her lesson, and made her way home; walking rather faster than she
had come.

She laid off her hat, went into the room where her father was, and sat