“They still think, down in Noank, that you’re not very happy with me,” he said.  “They’re afraid you want for something once in a while.”

She took this piece of neighborly interference in better fashion than most would, I fancy.

“I have never wanted for anything since I have been married to my husband,” she said.  “I am thoroughly contented.”

She looked at him and he at her, and there passed between them an affectionate glance.

“Yes,” he said, when she had passed after a pleasing little conversation, “my wife has been a great help to me.  She has never complained.”

“People are inclined to talk a little,” I said.

“Well, you see, she never complained, but she did feel a little bit worried in the beginning.”

“Have you a mission or a church here in Norwich?”

“No, I don’t believe in churches.”

“Not in churches?”

“No.  The sight of a minister preaching the word of God for so much a year is all a mockery to me.”

“What do you believe in?”

“Personal service.  Churches and charitable institutions and societies are all valueless.  You can’t reach your fellowman that way.  They build up buildings and pay salaries—­but there’s a better way.” (I was thinking of St. Francis and his original dream, before they threw him out and established monasteries and a costume or uniform—­the thing he so much objected to.) “This giving of a few old clothes that the moths will get anyhow, that won’t do.  You’ve got to give something of yourself, and that’s affection.  Love is the only thing you can really give in all this world.  When you give love, you give everything.  Everything comes with it in some way or other.”

“How do you say?” I queried.  “Money certainly comes handy sometimes.”

“Yes, when you give it with your own hand and heart—­in no other way.  It comes to nothing just contributed to some thing.  Ah!” he added, with sudden animation, “the tangles men can get themselves into, the snarls, the wretchedness!  Troubles with women, with men whom they owe, with evil things they say and think, until they can’t walk down the street any more without peeping about to see if they are followed.  They can’t look you in die face; can’t walk a straight course, but have got to sneak around corners.  Poor, miserable, unhappy—­they’re worrying and crying and dodging one another!”

He paused, lost in contemplation of the picture he had conjured up.

“Yes,” I went on catechistically, determined, if I could, to rout out this matter of giving, this actual example of the modus operandi of Christian charity.  “What do you do?  How do you get along without giving them money?”

“I don’t get along without giving them some money.  There are cases, lots of them, where a little money is necessary.  But, brother, it is so little necessary at times.  It isn’t always money they want.  You can’t reach them with old clothes and charity societies,” he insisted.  “You’ve got to love them, brother.  You’ve got to go to them and love them, just as they are, scarred and miserable and bad-hearted.”