load of debt tied round our necks, like a millstone, I should feel
almost light enough to fly. And then it IS hard to read in some of
those horrid religious papers that father lives an easy-going life.
Did you see a dreadful paragraph last week in the 'Church
Chronicle?'"

"Yes, I did," said Charles Osmond, sadly.

"It always has been the same," said Erica. "Father has a
delightful story about an old gentleman who at one of his lectures
accused him of being rich and self-indulgent--it was a great many
years ago, when I was a baby, and father was nearly killing himself
with overwork--and he just got up and gave the people the whole
history of his day, and it turned out that he had had nothing to
eat. Mustn't the old gentleman have felt delightfully done? I
always wonder how he looked when he heard about it, and whether
after that he believed that atheists are not necessarily everything
that's bad."

"I hope such days as those are over for Mr. Raeburn," said Charles
Osmond, touched both by the anecdote and by the loving admiration
of the speaker.

"I don't know," said Erica, sadly. "It has been getting steadily
worse for the last few years; we have had to give up thing after
thing. Before long I shouldn't wonder if these rooms in what
father calls "Persecution alley" grew too expensive for us. But,
after all, it is this sort of thing which makes our own people love
him so much, don't you think?"