marriage, she had grown to be one with him in hope and desire. Together
they made their mistakes and lived down their failure. They had other
troubles too, for the babies lived and died one by one.

There is seen to be a marvellous alchemy in true piety. Mind and sense
subject to its process become refined. Where refinement is not the
result, we may believe that there is a false note in the devotion, that
there is self-seeking in the effort toward God. Toyner's wealth grew
with the spread of the town over the land he owned. He had the good
taste to spend well the money he devoted to pleasure; yet it was not
books or pictures or music, acquired late in life, that gave to him and
to his wife the power to grow in harmony with their surroundings. It was
the high life of prayer and effort that they lived that made it possible
for God--the God of art as truly as the God of prayer--to teach them.

It is not at the best a cultured place, this backwoods town. There was
many a slip in grammar, many a broad uncouth accent, heard daily in
Ann's drawing-room; but what mental life the town had came to centre in
that room. Gradually reflecting neighbours began to learn that there was
a beneficent force other than intellectual at work there.

Young men who needed interest and pleasure, the poor who needed warmth
and food, came together to that room, and met there the drunkard in his
sober intervals, the gamester when he cared to play for mere pastime;
yes, and others, the more evil, were made welcome there. It was not
forgotten that Toyner had been a wicked man and that Ann's father had
been a murderer.

It was a strange effort this, to increase virtue in the virtuous, not by
separation from, but by friendship with, the unrepentant. To Toyner sin