“Hello!  There’s your father and the preacher!  I believe he is going to take him home to dinner.  Don’t look for me under your hospitable roof to-day, Winifred.”

“Why?” she began.

“I have no taste for parsons.  He’ll talk the backs off the chairs.  See if he doesn’t.  Good-by.”  And the young man strode carelessly away.

Winifred joined her mother in the vestibule, and they held a whispered consultation as to the probabilities of the young minister’s going home with them.  It seemed evident that Mr. Gray had taken him captive.

“Take him in the carriage and let me walk, mother,” Winifred said, “I would much rather.”  So she slipped away and did not meet the minister until dinner.

Hubert Gray, Winifred’s only brother, had also been at church that morning.  This was somewhat unusual, for Hubert was a sceptic, and he did not like to appear what he was not.  But occasionally he went to hear what might be said and turn it over in his questioning brain.  He was a young man of strong aversions, and one of his special dislikes happened to be the unfortunate Doctor Schoolman.

“I hate cant,” he declared.  “His very tones are studied and unnatural.  His voice quavers to order, and if I should see tears on his face I should think he had pumped them up someway for effect.  I don’t like to be practiced on.  I should like a man to believe something earnestly and say it honestly.”

And so he stayed away for the most part, but like many a man who is a sceptic, found that the subject of the Christ would not down, and he could not let it alone.  So after absences he would go again to hear, though it should be only to gain fresh occasion for his doubts or cynical criticisms.  To-day he was the first to arrive at home and met Winifred in the hall as she came in.

“The spiritual priesthood did very well to-day, Winnie,” he said, by way of greeting.  “I hope you all sang ’with grace in your hearts unto the Lord.’  I am sure Frothingham did.  I saw him—­eh, Winnie, what’s the matter?”

For Winifred had turned a quivering face toward her brother.

“I didn’t, Hubert,” she said.  “There was no grace in my heart.”  And then she hastened up the stairs to her room.

“Hm-m!” said Hubert reflectively, and repeated the observation at intervals until dinner was served.

CHAPTER II

THE HOUSE OF GRAY

The family gathered for dinner with its usual decorum.  Winifred sat opposite the young minister, and Hubert was beside him.  Mr. Robert Gray carved the turkey with his usual skill and the sharpest of knives.  He began his anticipated discussion with the preacher: 

“Your sermon fitted pretty closely to-day, Mr. Bond,” he said, as he separated a joint successfully.

“Did it really?” said Mr. Bond, with a smile that lit up a singularly pleasant face.  “I am glad to hear it.  That is what sermons are for, I believe?”