do naa, for all I were baptized and a communicant. It's queer,
isn't it?'

'Ey, lass; thaa'd better tell that to Mr. Penrose. I know naught
abaat what yo're talkin' on. Bud it does seem, as thaa ses, quare
that thaa belongs more to God naa nor thaa did when thaa went
away.'

'Nay, mother, it's noan exactly as yo' put it. I durnd mean as
God's changed; it's me as has changed, durnd yo' see? I never knew
or loved Him afore, and I know and love Him naa.'

That afternoon, when Mr. Penrose called, Amanda's mother told him
all her daughter had said, and made known to him as the pastor of
the Church the request for readmission and the administration of
the sacrament.

Mr. Penrose, however, shook his head. As far as he was concerned,
no one would have been more willing. But the deacons ruled his
Church, and many of them were hard and exacting men--men with the
eye and heart of Simon of old, who, while they would welcome
Christ to meat, would put the ban upon 'the woman who was a
sinner.' Nor dared Mr. Penrose administer the sacrament to one
whose membership was not assured, for he ministered to those of a
close sect, and a close sect of the straitest order. As the mother
pleaded for her child, he saw rising before him a difficulty of
which he had often dreamed, but never before faced--a difficulty
of ministering to a Church fenced in by deeds, the letter of which
he could not in his inner conscience accept.