The rector, who reduced most wretchedness to terms of dollars and cents,

of impending bills and small deprivations found himself at a loss.

"I am sure you are wrong," he objected, rather feebly.

Delight eyed him with the scorn of nineteen for fifty.

"I wonder what you would do," she observed, "if mother just lay around

all day, and had her hair done, and got new clothes, and never thought

a thought of her own, and just used you as a sort of walking

bank-account?"

"My dear, I really can not--"

"I'll tell you what you'd do," she persisted. "You'd fall in love with

somebody else, probably. Or else you'd just naturally dry up and be made

a bishop."

He was extremely shocked at that, and a little hurt. It took her some

time to establish cheerful relations again, and a very humble apology.

But her words stuck in the rector's mind. He made a note for a sermon,

with the text: "Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband

also, and he praiseth her."

He went quietly into the great stone building and sat down. The organist

was practicing the Introit anthem, and half way up the church a woman

was sitting quietly.

The rector leaned back, and listened to the music. He often did that

when he had a sermon in his mind. It was peaceful and quiet. Hard to

believe, in that peace of great arches and swelling music, that across

the sea at that moment men were violating that fundamental law of the

church, "Thou shalt not kill."

The woman turned her head, and he saw that it was Audrey Valentine.

He watched her with kindly, speculative eyes. Self-reliant, frivolous

Audrey, sitting alone in the church she had so casually attended--surely

that was one of the gains of war. People all came to it ultimately. They

held on with both hands as long as they could, and then they found their

grasp growing feeble and futile, and they turned to the Great Strength.

The organist had ceased. Audrey was kneeling now. The rector, eyes on

the gleaming cross above the altar, repeated softly: "Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech Thee, from the hands of our

enemies; that we, being armed with Thy defense, may be preserved

evermore from all perils."

Audrey was coming down the aisle. She did not see him. She had, indeed,

the fixed eyes of one who still looks inward. She was very pale, but

there was a new look of strength in her face, as of one who has won a

victory.




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