"That's HER doin', then," returned Arthur, with a laugh. "She's always
lookin' round the corners of her eyes at me when she passes. Why, John
Rogers was joking me about her only yesterday, and said McGee would blow
a hole through me some of these days if I didn't look out! Of course,"
he added, affectedly curling his moustache, "that's nonsense! But you
know how they talk, and she's too pretty for that fellow McGee."

"She has found a careful helpmeet in her husband," said Madison sternly,
"and it's neither seemly nor Christian in you, Arthur, to repeat the
idle, profane gossip of the Bar. I knew her before her marriage, and if
she was not a professing Christian, she was, and is, a pure, good woman!
Let us have no more of this."

Whether impressed by the tone of his brother's voice, or only affected
by his own mercurial nature, Arthur changed the subject to further
voluble reminiscences of his trip to Angel's. Yet he did not seem
embarrassed nor disconcerted when his brother, in the midst of his
speech, placed the candle and the Bible on the table, with two chairs
before it. He listened to Madison's monotonous reading of the evening
exercise with equally monotonous respect. Then they both arose, without
looking at each other, but with equally set and stolid faces, and knelt
down before their respective chairs, clasping the back with both hands,
and occasionally drawing the hard, wooden frames against their breasts
convulsively, as if it were a penitential act. It was the elder brother
who that night prayed aloud. It was his voice that rose higher by
degrees above the low roof and encompassing walls, the level river camp
lights that trembled through the window, the dark belt of riverside
trees, and the light on the promontory's crest--up to the tranquil,
passionless stars themselves.