"They can't forget, and I don't blame them much, poor things, do you?
It's the free-born American spirit. There now, Mr. Glynn, you were
asking me yesterday to suggest some one for junior warden. Why not Mr.
Babcock? They're new comers and seem available people."

Mr. Glynn's distress at her first question was merged in the interest
inspired by her second, for his glance had followed hers until it rested
on the Babcocks, who had just entered the vestry to attend the social
reunion. Selma's face wore its worried archangel aspect. She was on her
good behavior and proudly on her guard against social impertinence. But
she looked very pretty, and her compact, slight figure indicated a busy
way.

"I will interrogate him," he answered. "I have observed them before,
and--and I can't quite make out the wife. It is almost a spiritual face,
and yet--"

"Just a little hard and keen," broke in Mrs. Taylor, upon his
hesitation. "She is pretty, and she looks clever. I think we can get
some work out of her."

Thereupon she sailed gracefully in the direction of Selma. Mrs. Taylor
was from Maryland. Her husband, a physician, had come to Benham at the
close of the war to build up a practice, and his wife had aided him by
her energy and graciousness to make friends. Unlike some Southerners,
she was not indolent, and yet she possessed all the ingratiating,
spontaneous charm of well-bred women from that section of the country.
Her tastes were æsthetic and ethical rather than intellectual, and her
special interest at the moment was the welfare of the church. She
thought it desirable that all the elements of which the congregation was