that, I should think. But to some of us God is only another name for the
power of good,--or, one might as well say force, and that is blind and
impersonal; there is nothing comforting or tender in the thought of
force. How do you suppose the conviction of the personality of God is
reached?"

"All nonsense," said the rector, as he went home, striking out with
his cane at the stalks of golden-rod standing stiff with frost at the
roadside. "I shall tell Gifford he ought to know better than to have
these discussions with her. Women don't understand such things; they go
off at half cock, and think themselves skeptics. All nonsense!"

But the rector need not have felt any immediate anxiety about his niece.
As yet such questions were only a sort of intellectual exercise; the time
had not come when they should be intensely real, and she should seek for
an answer with all the force of her life, and know the anguish of despair
which comes when a soul feels itself adrift upon a sea of unbelief. They
were not of enough importance to talk of to John, even if she had not
known they would trouble him; she and Gifford had merely spoken of them
as speculations of general interest; yet all the while they were shaping
and moulding her mind for the future.

But the letter brought a cloud on Dr. Howe's face; he wanted to forget
it, he was impatient to shake off the unpleasant remembrances it roused,
and so engaged was he in this that by the time he had reached the rectory
Mr. Denner and his perplexities were quite out of his mind, though the
lawyer's face was still tingling with mortification.

Mr. Denner could not keep his thoughts from his puzzle. Supper-time came,
and he was still struggling to reach a conclusion. He carved the cold