spoke he still held my hand and I was still too dazed to regain
possession of it. Father saved the situation.

"Sit down, sit down, Parson, and let Charlotte give you a cup of coffee
while it is on the simmer," he urged with hasty hospitality as if intent
upon effectively bottling me up, at least for the immediate present.
"She was just pouring my cup. Will you say grace before I take my first
sip?" was the high explosive he further proceeded to hurl in my face.

And as he spoke I sank dumbly into my chair and helplessly bowed my head
to a ceremony so obsolete in the world from which I had come that I felt
as if I was slipping back into the days of the pioneer, when the customs
of life were still primitive and dictated by emotion rather than mental
science.

And there, with father's concealed mint julep right against his
interlaced fingers, the mountain lion bowed his crested head and
involved me in prayer for the first time since chapel-service in my
college days.

"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof ... for which we give
thanks, thy children, with Lord Jesus, Amen!"

"Amen," mumbled father as if from the depths of embarrassment, and
against my will, as it were, a queer sort of a croon of an echo came
from my own throat.

Also that was the first time I had ever heard words of prayer under the
roof of the Poplars. It embarrassed me and I hated it and the cause of
it. The spell which had possessed me since the entrance of the Reverend