“No,” answered Joan. “But my mother was. Are you?” “Now, none of that,” he said severely. “It’s no good your thinking of me. I’m wedded to my art. We are talking about Mr. Halliday.”!

There was a famous preacher. He lived the simple life in a small house in Battersea, and consecrated all his energies to the service of the poor. Almost, by his unselfish zeal, he had persuaded Joan of the usefulness of the church. Mr. Airlie frequently visited him. They interested one another. What struck Mr. Airlie most was the self-sacrificing devotion with which the reverend gentleman’s wife and family surrounded him. It was beautiful to see. The calls upon his moderate purse, necessitated by his wide-spread and much paragraphed activities, left but a narrow margin for domestic expenses: with the result that often the only fire in the house blazed brightly in the study where Mr. Airlie and the reverend gentleman sat talking: while mother and children warmed themselves with sense of duty in the cheerless kitchen. And often, as Mr. Airlie, who was of an inquiring turn of mind, had convinced himself, the only evening meal that resources would permit was the satisfying supper for one brought by the youngest daughter to her father where he sat alone in the small dining-room. It would be rather pleasant. There was a little place at Meudon, she remembered. The plane trees would just be in full leaf.

“You have chosen the better part,” he informed her, on her granting it. “When I’m not smoking, I’m talking.” “I didn’t know it was going to be such a swell affair, or I shouldn’t have come,” he said. “You’re not a Christian Scientist, by any chance?” she asked Joan suddenly.