“Yes, my dear Mrs. Upjohn.  It’s undeniably a poor Church, a poor Church, and I hope we may all live to witness its downfall.  It must have been a hard day for you, Mrs. Lane, when Phebe went over to it.  I never forgave old Mr. White for receiving her into it; I never did, indeed.”

Phebe only smiled.

“Humph!” said Mrs. Lane, biting off a thread.  “Phebe may go where she likes, for all me, so long as only she goes.  Baptist I was bred, and Baptist I’ll be buried; but it’s with churches as with teas, I say.  One’s as good as another, but people may take green, or black, or mixed, as best agrees with their stomachs.”

“That’s a very dangerous doctrine,” said Mrs. Upjohn.  “Push it a little further, and you’ll have babes and sucklings living on beef, and their elders dining on pap.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Mrs. Lane again.  “If they like it, what’s the odds?”

“He-he!” snickered Miss Brooks.

“Well, now,” resumed Mr. Hardcastle, “it stands to reason children should learn to like what their elders have liked before them.  That’s the only decent and Christian way of living.  And as I said to my son,—­to my Dick, you know” (Mr. Hardcastle had a son of whom he always spoke as if sole owner of him, and indeed solely responsible for his being),—­“‘Dick,’ I said, when he spoke disrespectfully of Mr. Webb’s prayers,—­and Mr. Webb is a powerful prayer-maker, to be sure,—­’Dick,’ I said, ’church is like physic, and the more you don’t like it, the more good it does you.  And if you think Mr. Webb’s prayers are too long, it’s a sign that for your soul’s salvation they ought to be longer.’  And I said—­”

Mrs. Lane knew by long experience that now or never was the time to stop Mr. Hardcastle.  Once fairly started on the subject of his supposed advice to Dick on any given occasion, there was no arresting his eloquence.  She started up abruptly from her sewing-machine with her mouth full of pins, emptying them into her hand as she went.  “Those ginger-cookies—­” she mumbled as she passed Mr. Hardcastle.  “They ought to be done by this.”

A promissory fragrance caught the old gentleman’s nostrils as she opened the door, dispelling sterner thoughts.  “Ah,” he said, sniffing the air with evident approbation, “I was about going, but I don’t mind if I stay and try a few.  Your make, Phebe?”

“No,” answered Phebe, shortly, moving just out of reach of the bland old hand, which stretched itself out to chuck her under the chin, and was left patting the air with infinite benevolence “mother made them.”

“All wrong,” commented Mrs. Upjohn.  “All wrong.  You should not leave your mother any work that you could spare her.  One of the first things I taught our Maria” (Mrs. Upjohn in Mr. Hardcastle’s presence always said our Maria with great distinctness),—­“one of the first things I taught her was, that it was her privilege to save me in every thing.  I don’t believe in idleness for girls.  Aren’t you ready yet to attend to these crewels, Phebe?  Miss Brooks is snarling them terribly.”