Hubert did not find his soul much fed by the discourse, but, keen and discriminating as his mind might be, he was not yet a Bible student and able to disentangle the original thoughts of the preacher from the teachings of revelation.  He found much to assent to ethically, but, compared with the revelation in his laboratory when the pure light of heaven shone upon the pages of John’s Gospel, the rhetorical utterances of Doctor Schoolman were as water unto wine.  They were not so commanding but that he at last found time to glance at his neighbors to see how they were taking the sermon.  Winifred was too near him to be looked at, likewise his father; but he could see his mother.  Very elegant, very composed, very approving she looked.  A calm contentment beamed upon her mobile face, and Hubert could not help it that his sharp eye, formed to detect minutiae, printed upon his mind even the details of the picture she made, sitting so quietly there.  Soft, lustrous, black silk became well the figure which a life of gentle inactivity caused to incline to corpulence, while a modest show of exquisite lace relieved its somberness.  There was just a tiny glitter of costly gems, not too vulgarly showy for church, and the most suitable of bonnets crowned the graceful head, whose waves of soft brown hair still repudiated silver.

The minister’s text led him to heaven at this point, and he drew it in sentimental lines; a place whose essential light was not so much the Lamb as other things; a place of reunited friends, of congenial occupations, of tastes gratified, and of knowledge ever widening.  He offered no uncomfortable suggestion that any of his hearers might fail of entering there.

Hubert saw among his hearers abstracted faces not a few; interested, studious faces; and hungry faces which looked their longing for meat not found as yet in the Lord’s house.  Among the last class he noticed in one of the front pews a man, evidently an artisan, whose deep, large eyes looked yearningly toward the pulpit with an appeal for bread, while from it there came, through fine and learned discourse, to his untutored mind a stone.  His face smote Hubert with a sudden pity, and a hunger crept into his own heart, not alone to know Christ, but to make Him known.  He wondered if this man had ever seen Him as he had.  Oh, if he could only tell him of Him, and turn the misery of those longing eyes into joy!

The sermon ended.  It was never very long; for Doctor Schoolman well knew that patience, that sits good-naturedly for hours at games or races, or in the seats of a packed theater, has very short limits at church.  He never taxed it, nor himself, too far.  So the closing hymn was punctually sung, and the benediction was pronounced in tender tones upon the congregation.

Mrs. Butterworth’s curiosity blossomed afresh when the meeting was over and she had the opportunity of speaking with Winifred and her mother.  She addressed herself to the former, to Mrs. Gray’s mingled relief and terror; relief that she herself was not called upon to find excuses, and terror lest Winifred should make herself ridiculous.