haven't even dared to tell myself--so, you see--my _real_ reason for
going is simply to find out what my reason really is. I'm dying to know.
There! Now never say I didn't trust you."

In the first shock of this fall from her anticipations Aunt Bell
neglected to remember that All is Good. Yet she was presently far enough
mollified to accompany her niece to the station.

Returning from thence after she had watched Nancy through the gate to
the 3:05 Edom local, Aunt Bell lingered at the open study door of the
rector of St. Antipas. He looked up cordially.

"You know, Allan, it may do the child good, after all, to be alone a
little while."

"Nancy--has--not--pleased--me!" The words were clean-cut, with an
illuminating pause after each, so that Aunt Bell might by no chance
mistake their import, yet the tone was low and not without a quality of
winning sweetness--the tone of the injured good.

"I've seen that, Allan. Nance undoubtedly has a vein of selfishness.
Instead of striving to please her husband, she--well, she has
practically intimated to me that a wife has the right to please herself.
Of course, she didn't say it brutally in just those words, but--"

"It's the modern spirit, Aunt Bell--the spirit of unbelief. It has made
what we call the 'new woman'--that noxious flower on the stalk of
scientific materialism."

He turned and wrote this phrase rapidly on a pad at his elbow, while