on the Babcocks, who had just entered the vestry to attend the social
reunion. Selma's face wore its worried archangel aspect. She was on her
good behavior and proudly on her guard against social impertinence. But
she looked very pretty, and her compact, slight figure indicated a busy
way.

"I will interrogate him," he answered. "I have observed them before,
and--and I can't quite make out the wife. It is almost a spiritual face,
and yet--"

"Just a little hard and keen," broke in Mrs. Taylor, upon his
hesitation. "She is pretty, and she looks clever. I think we can get
some work out of her."

Thereupon she sailed gracefully in the direction of Selma. Mrs. Taylor
was from Maryland. Her husband, a physician, had come to Benham at the
close of the war to build up a practice, and his wife had aided him by
her energy and graciousness to make friends. Unlike some Southerners,
she was not indolent, and yet she possessed all the ingratiating,
spontaneous charm of well-bred women from that section of the country.
Her tastes were aesthetic and ethical rather than intellectual, and her
special interest at the moment was the welfare of the church. She
thought it desirable that all the elements of which the congregation was
composed should be represented on the committees, and Selma seemed to
her the most obviously available person from the class to which the
Babcocks belonged.

"I want you to help us," she said. "I think you have ideas. We need a
woman with sense and ideas on our committee to build the new church."

Selma was not used to easy grace and sprightly spontaneity. It affected
her at first much as the touch of man; but just as in that instance the
experience was agreeable. Life was too serious a thing in her regard to
lend itself casually to lightness, and yet she felt instinctively
attracted by this lack of self-consciousness and self-restraint. Besides
here was an opportunity such as she had been yearning for. She had met
Mrs. Taylor before, and knew her to be the presiding genius of the
congregation; and it was evident that Mrs. Taylor had discovered her
value.

"Thank you," she said, gravely, but cordially. "That is what I should
like. I wish to be of use. I shall be pleased to serve on the
committee."

"It will be interesting, I think. I have never helped build anything
before. Perhaps you have?"

"No," said Selma slowly. Her tone conveyed the impression that, though
her abilities had never been put to t