"What _would_ people say if they heard you announce that you 'would give
up the Bible'?"

"I hope no one will ever hear her say anything so foolish," said Dr.
Howe, but John Ward looked at Lois in honest surprise.

"Would it make any difference what people said?" he asked.

"Oh, I wasn't speaking very seriously," Lois answered, laughing, "but
still, one does not like to say anything which is unusual, you know,
about such things. And of course Helen doesn't really mean that she'd
give up the Bible."

"But I do," Helen interrupted, smiling; and she might have said more,
for she could not see John's troubled look in the darkness, but Gifford
Woodhouse came down the path to meet them and give Miss Ruth's message.

"Just in time, young man," said the rector, as Gifford silently took some
of John's burden of shawls and cushions, and turned and walked beside
him. "Here's Helen giving Ward an awful idea of her orthodoxy; come and
vouch for the teaching you get at St. Michael's."

Gifford laughed. "What is orthodoxy, doctor?" he said. "I'm sure I don't
know!"

"'The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,'" quoted the rector in a
burlesque despair. "Why, what we believe, boy,--what _we_ believe! The
rest of my flock know better, Mr. Ward, I assure you."

"I don't think we know what we do believe, uncle," Helen said lightly.