“I so love making them,” she said. “I say to myself, ‘It will all come right. God will send more and more of His Christ babies; till at last there will be thousands and thousands of them everywhere; and their love will change the world!’” “Why, that’s a sign of breeding, that is, Missie,” the man had explained. “It’s the classy ones that are always the worst.”!

“It would be rather interesting, a fight between them,” said Joan. “Myself I should back Phillips.” She felt the time had come to speak seriously. “I want you to marry,” she said, “and be happy. I shall be troubled if you don’t.”

“He who in his heart—” there was verse and chapter for it. Joan was a murderess. Just as well, so far as Joan was concerned, might she have taken a carving-knife and stabbed Deacon Hornflower to the heart. They looked at one another, and then beyond the sheltering evergreens and the wide lawns to where the great square house seemed to be listening. “We must stir the people up about this food business,” he said, plunging at once into his subject. “Phillips is quite right. It overshadows everything. We must make the country self-supporting. It can be done and must. If a war were to be sprung upon us we could be starved out in a month. Our navy, in face of these new submarines, is no longer able to secure us. France is working day and night upon them. It may be a bogey, or it may not. If it isn’t, she would have us at her mercy; and it’s too big a risk to run. You live in the same house with him, don’t you? Do you often see him?”