“Mrs. Eversley is an unlucky little woman, from what I hear,” began Aunt Bell, once more with altruistic aims.

“That reminds me,” said the Doctor, recalling himself from a downward look at the grovelling Browett, “she made me promise to be in at four o’clock.  Really I couldn’t evade her—­it was either four o’clock to-day or the first possible day.  What could I do?  Aunt Bell, I won’t pretend that this being looked up to and sought out is always disagreeable.  Contrary to the Pharisee, I say ‘Thank God I am as other men are!’ I have my human moments, but mostly it bores me, and especially these half-religious, half-sentimental confidences of emotional women who imagine their lives are tragedies.  Now this woman believes her marriage is unhappy—­”

“Indeed, it is!” Aunt Bell broke in—­this time effectually, for she proceeded to relate of one Morris Upton Eversley a catalogue of inelegancies that, if authoritative, left him, considered as a husband, undesirable, not to say impracticable.  His demerits, indeed, served to bring the meal to a blithe and chatty close.

Aunt Bell’s practice each day after luncheon was, in her own terminology, to “go into the silence and concentrate upon the thought of the All-Good.”  She was recalled from the psychic state on this afternoon, though happily not before a good half-hour, by Nancy’s knock at her door.

She came in, cheerful, a small sheaf of papers in her hand.  Aunt Bell, finding herself restored and amiable, sat up to listen.

Nancy threw herself on the couch, with the air of a woman about to chat confidentially from the softness of many gay pillows, dropping into the attitude of tranquil relaxation that may yet bristle with eager mental quills.

“The drollest thing, Aunt Bell!  This morning instead of hearing Allan, I went up to that trunk-room and rummaged through the chest that has all those old papers and things of Grandfather Delcher’s.  And would you believe it?  For an hour or more there, I was reading bits of his old sermons.”

“But he was a Presbyterian!” In her tone and inflection Aunt Bell ably conveyed an exposition of the old gentleman’s impossibility—­lucidly allotting him to spiritual fellowship with the head-hunters of Borneo.

“I know it, but, Aunt Bell, those old sermons really did me good; all full of fire they were, too, but you felt a man back of them—­a good man, a real man.  You liked him, and it didn’t matter that his terminology was at times a little eccentric.  Grandfather’s theology fitted the last days of his life about as crinoline and hoop-skirts would fit over there on the avenue to-day—­but he always made me feel religious.  It seemed sweet and good to be a Christian when he talked.  With all his antiquated beliefs he never made me doubt as—­as I doubt to-day.  But it was another thing I wanted to show you—­something I found—­some old compositions of Bernal’s that his grandfather must have kept.  Here’s one about birds—­’jingle-birds, squeak-birds and clatter-birds.’  No?—­you wouldn’t care for that?—­well—­listen to this.”