The announcement that in the evening a series of revival meetings was to be inaugurated, had been made at the love-feast, and it was repeated now from the pulpit, with the added statement that for the once the class-meetings usually following this morning service would be suspended.  Then Theron came down the steps, conscious after a fashion that the Presiding Elder had laid a propitiatory hand on his shoulder and spoken amiably about the sermon, and that several groups of more or less important parishioners were waiting in the aisle and the vestibule to shake hands and tell him how much they had enjoyed the sermon.  His mind perversely kept hold of the thought that all this came too late.  He politely smiled his way along out, and, overtaking the Soulsbys and his wife near the parsonage gate, went in with them.

At the cold, picked-up noonday meal which was the Sunday rule of the house, Theron rather expected that his guests would talk about the sermon, or at any rate about the events of the morning.  A Sabbath chill seemed to have settled upon both their tongues.  They ate almost in silence, and their sparse remarks touched upon topics far removed from church affairs.  Alice too, seemed strangely disinclined to conversation.  The husband knew her face and its varying moods so well that he could see she was laboring under some very powerful and deep emotion.  No doubt it was the sermon, the oratorical swing of which still tingled in his own blood, that had so affected her.  If she had said so, it would have pleased him, but she said nothing.

After dinner, Brother Soulsby disappeared in his bedroom, with the remark that he guessed he would lie down awhile.  Sister Soulsby put on her bonnet, and, explaining that she always prepared herself for an evening’s work by a long solitary walk, quitted the house.  Alice, after she had put the dinner things away, went upstairs, and stayed there.  Left to himself, Theron spent the afternoon in the easy-chair, and, in the intervals of confused introspection, read “Recollections of my Youth” through again from cover to cover.

He went through the remarkable experiences attending the opening of the revival, when evening came, as one in a dream.  Long before the hour for the service arrived, the sexton came in to tell him that the church was already nearly full, and that it was going to be impossible to present any distinction in the matter of pews.  When the party from the parsonage went over—­after another cold and mostly silent meal—­it was to find the interior of the church densely packed, and people being turned away from the doors.