"I got enough church at boarding-school to last me a lifetime, mother,"
her son replied. He was slightly older than Evelyn, and just out of
college. "Besides, any heathen can get on the vestry--it's a financial
board, and they're due to put Phil on some day. They're always putting
him on boards."

His mother looked a little distressed.

"Rex, I wish you wouldn't talk that way about the Church--"

"I'm sorry, mother," he said, with quick penitence. "Mr. Langmaid's a
vestryman, you know, and they've only got him there because he's the best
corporation lawyer in the city. He isn't exactly what you'd call
orthodox. He never goes."

"We are indebted to Mr. Langmaid for Mr. Hodder." This was one of Mr.
Waring's rare remarks.

Eleanor Goodrich caught her husband's eye, and smiled.

"I wonder why it is," she said, "that we are so luke-warm about church in
these days? I don't mean you, Lucy, or Laureston," she added to her
sister, Mrs. Grey. "You're both exemplary." Lucy bowed ironically.
"But most people of our ages with whom we associate. Martha Preston, for
instance. We were all brought up like the children of Jonathan Edwards.
Do you remember that awful round-and-round feeling on Sunday afternoons,
Sally, and only the wabbly Noah's Ark elephant to play with, right in
this house? instead of THAT!" There was a bump in the hall without, and
shrieks of laughter. "I'll never forget the first time it occurred to
me--when I was reading Darwin--that if the ark were as large as Barnum's