He was silent for a while, with a quiet look on his face. “I’se tooked them off,” explained Joan. A piece of information that really, all things considered, seemed unnecessary.!

“I really must protest,” exclaimed Mr. Simson. “To whatever wrong uses His words may have been twisted, Christ Himself I regard as divine, and entitled to be spoken of with reverence. His whole life, His sufferings—” Neither spoke for a while. Later on, they talked about the coming election. If the Party got back, Phillips would go to the Board of Trade. It would afford him a better platform for the introduction of his land scheme.

“Yes,” answered Joan. “He was a landscape painter, wasn’t he?” “I’m so afraid,” she answered gravely. “That I shall come to love you too much: the home, the children and you. I shall have none left over.” She lingered in the street by herself, a little time, after he had turned the corner. It had been a house of sorrow and disappointment to her; but so also she had dreamed her dreams there, seen her visions. She had never made much headway with her landlord and her landlady: a worthy couple, who had proved most excellent servants, but who prided themselves, to use their own expression, on knowing their place and keeping themselves to themselves. Joan had given them notice that morning, and had been surprised at the woman’s bursting into tears.