, during supper, to sound Uncle Sim, leading up to the subject by
an adroit indirectness. "Been to church," he said, after serving Cousin
Amy Dawes with lobster a la Newburg.

"Saw you," came from Uncle Sim.

"Did you? What were you doing there? Thought you were a disciple of old
Hilary."

"That was the reason. Hilary's idea. Can't go 'round to the different
churches himself, so he sends me. Look in on 'em all."

"There's too much sherry in this lobster a la Newburg," Cousin Amy Dawes
said, sternly. "I bet she's put in two tablespoonfuls instead of one."

Being stone-deaf, Cousin Amy Dawes took no part in conversation except
what she herself could contribute. She was a dignified woman who had the
air of being hewn in granite. There was nothing soft about her but three
detachable corkscrew curls on each side of an immobile face and a heart
that every one knew to be as maternal as milk. Dressed in stiff black
silk, a heavy gold chain around her neck, and a huge gold brooch at her
throat, and wearing fingerless black-silk mittens, she might have walked
out of an old daguerreotype.

"I should think," Thor observed, dryly, "that you'd find your religion
growing rather composite."

"No. T'other way 'round. Grows simpler. Get their co-ordinating
principle--the common denominator that goes into 'em all."

"That is," Lois said, in the endeavor to be free to think her own
thoughts by keeping him on a hobby, "you look for their points of
contact rather than their differences."

"Oh, you get beyond the differences. 'Beyond these voices there is
peace.' Doesn't some one say that? Well, you get there. If you can stand
the clamor of the voices for a while you emerge into a kind of still
place where they blend into one. Then you find that they're all trying
to say the same thing, which is also the thing you're trying to say
yourself."

As he sat back in his chair twisting his wiry mustache with a handsome,
sun-burnt hand, Thor felt that he had him where he had been hoping to
get him. "But what _do_ we want to say, Uncle Sim? What do you want to
say? And what do I?"

The old man held his sharp-pointed beard by the tip, eying his nephew
obliquely. "That's the great secret, Thor. We're all like little babies,
who from the time they begin to hear language are bursting with the
desire to say something; only they don't know what it is till they learn
to speak. Then it comes to 'em."

"Yes, but what comes to them?"

"Isn't it