"I am sure that Miss Patience Hurribattle is ignorant of any such
tendency in these new doctrines," I exclaimed, indignantly.

"Doubtless she is," assented Clifton. "There is a hopeful,
simple-hearted gleam in her eye, a fine simplicity in her speech, which
betokens enthusiasm of a purely religious type. But she is banded with
those who would use religion only as a fiery stimulant to the intellect,
never as a balm to the heart."

A crunching upon the gravel-walk. A man and a woman were hurrying up to
the parsonage. The woman short, sharp, lean; the man unctious and
foxy,--yet also representing a chronic state of gelatinous bewilderment.
The Great Socialists,--I knew them at once.

"Triumph! triumph!" cried Mr. Stellato, bursting into the study. "Deacon
Greenlaw has been converted at last! He will make a holocaust of his
cider-mill!"

"He will signalize his submission to the Gladiators by a great Act of
Faith!" exclaimed Mrs. Romulus. "His cider-mill will be publicly burned
this afternoon at five o'clock. All the delegate Gladiators will march
in procession to the ground. Invitations have been sent to the Order of
Frugivorous Brothers, the Infants' Anti-Tobacco League,"--

"Two drops of the oil of tobacco will kill a tomcat of the largest
proportions," murmured Mr. Stellato, in choral parenthesis.

--"the Principal and Patients of the Lilac-Hill Water-Cure, the Children
of the Public Schools, the Millennial Choir, and Progressive Citizens
generally," said Mrs. Romulus, finishing her sentence.