Theron himself comprehended that he had pleased the bulk of his
auditors; the knowledge left him curiously hot and cold. On the one
hand, there was joy in the apparent prospect that the congregation would
back him up in a stand against the trustees, if worst came to worst.
But, on the other hand, the bonnet episode entered his soul. It had
been a source of bitter humiliation to him to see his wife sitting there
beneath the pulpit, shorn by despotic order of the adornments natural
to her pretty head. But he had even greater pain in contemplating the
effect it had produced on Alice herself. She had said not a word on the
subject, but her every glance and gesture seemed to him eloquent of deep
feeling about it. He made sure that she blamed him for having defended
his own gas and sidewalk rights with successful vigor, but permitted
the sacrifice of her poor little inoffensive roses without a protest. In
this view of the matter, indeed, he blamed himself. Was it too late to
make the error good? He ventured a hint on this Sunday evening, when he
returned to the parsonage and found her reading an old weekly newspaper
by the light of the kitchen lamp, to the effect that he fancied there
would be no great danger in putting those roses back into her bonnet.
Without lifting her eyes from the paper, she answered that she had
no earthly desire to wear roses in her bonnet, and went on with her
reading.

At breakfast the next morning Theron found himself in command of an
unusual fund of humorous good spirits, and was at pains to make the
most of it, passing whimsical comments on subjects which the opening
day suggested, recalling quaint and comical memories of the past, and
striving his best to force Alice into a laugh. Formerly her merry temper
had always ignited at the merest spark of gayety. Now she gave his jokes
only a dutiful half-smile, and uttered scarcely a word in response to