change that has come over me; and I owe it all to you."

"I can only hope, then, that it is entirely of a satisfactory nature,"
said the priest, politely smiling.

"Oh, it is so splendidly satisfactory!" said Theron, with fervor. "I
look back at myself now with wonder and pity. It seems incredible
that, such a little while ago, I should have been such an ignorant
and unimaginative clod of earth, content with such petty ambitions and
actually proud of my limitations."

"And you have larger ambitions now?" asked the other. "Pray let me help
you to some potatoes. I am afraid that ambitions only get in our way and
trip us up. We clergymen are like street-car horses. The more steadily
we jog along between the rails, the better it is for us."

"Oh, I don't intend to remain in the ministry," declared Theron. The
statement seemed to him a little bald, now that he had made it; and as
his companion lifted his brows in surprise, he added stumblingly: "That
is, as I feel now, it seems to me impossible that I should remain much
longer. With you, of course, it is different. You have a thousand things
to interest and pleasantly occupy you in your work and its ceremonies,
so that mere belief or non-belief in the dogma hardly matters. But in
our church dogma is everything. If you take that away, or cease to have
its support, the rest is intolerable, hideous."

Father Forbes cut another slice of mutton for himself. "It is a pretty
serious business to make such a change at your time of life. I take it
for granted you will think it all over very carefully before you commit
yourself." He said this with an almost indifferent air, which rather