"Not cross at all, Mrs. Linceford. Only jarred upon continually by these
people we have here just now. It was different two years ago. But
Jefferson is getting to be too well known. The mountain places are being
spoiled, one after another."

"People will come. You can't help that."

"Yes, they will come, and frivel about the gates, without ever once
entering in. 'Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who shall
stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who
hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity.'"

Leslie Goldthwaite's face quickened and glowed; they were the psalm
lines that had haunted her thought yesterday, among the opening visions
of the hill-country. Marmaduke Wharne bent his keen eyes upon her, from
under their gray brows, noting her narrowly. She wist not that she was
noted, or that her face shone.

"One soul here, at least!" was what the stern old man said to himself in
that moment.

He was cynical and intolerant here among the mountains, where he felt
the holy places desecrated, and the gift of God unheeded. In the haunts
of city misery and vice,--misery and vice shut in upon itself, with no
broad outlook to the heavens,--he was tender, with the love of Christ
himself.

"'My house shall be called the house of prayer, but these have made it a
den of thieves.' It is true not alone of the temples built with hands."

"Is that fair? How do you _know_, Mr. Wharne?" The sudden, impetuous
questions come from Leslie Goldthwaite.

"I see--what I see."

"The whole?" said Leslie, more restrainedly. She remembered her respect
for age and office. Yet she felt sorely tempted, shy, proud girl as she
was, to take up cudgels for her friends, at least. Mr. Wharne liked her
the better for that.

"They turn away from this, with five words,--the toll of custom,--or
half a look, when the wind is north; and they go in to what you saw last
night."

"After all, isn't it just _enjoyment_, either way? Mayn't one be as
selfish as the other? People were kind, and bright, and pleasant with
each other last night. Is that a bad thing?"

"No, little girl, it is not." And Marmaduke Wharne came nearer to
Leslie, and looked at her with a gentle look that was wonderfully
beautiful upon his stern gray face. "Only, I would have a kindness that
should go deep,--coming from a depth. There are two things for live men
and women to do: to receive, from God; and to give out, to their
fellows. One cann