Winifred did not know that this very knowledge of exclusion, and its
grief, were harbingers of eternally better things. She stood with the
others as they sang the closing hymn, and her own silence was
unobserved, as she did not always join the chorus. She had recovered
her composure by the time the benediction was pronounced and the organ
was yielding an unusually lively postlude to whose strains she and
George Frothingham descended the stairs together.

"The old chap is almost waltzing us out to-day," that gentleman
remarked, referring to the organist. "Winifred, you outdid yourself
to-day on that lovely thing."

Winifred smiled faintly. "Did you hear the sermon to-day, George?" she
asked.

"Did I hear it? Well, that's good. Do I hear sermons when I go to
church? But I confess to a little absentmindedness; not to equal that
of our friend at the organ, however," and George laughed. Then he
caught sight of a group of people in the vestibule below and exclaimed:

"Hello! There's your father and the preacher! I believe he is going
to take him home to dinner. Don't look for me under your hospitable
roof to-day, Winifred."

"Why?" she began.

"I have no taste for parsons. He'll talk the backs off the chairs.
See if he doesn't. Good-by." And the young man strode carelessly away.

Winifred joined her mother in the vestibule, and they held a whispered