“Their convictions!” concluded little Floud, impatient alike of the speaker’s hesitation and the expected platitude.

“No—­I was about to say—­the courage—­of ours.”

A few looked politely blank at this unseasonable flippancy.  Father Riley smiled with rare sweetness and murmured, “So cynical, even for a Unitarian!” as if to himself in playful confidence.

But the amiable Presbyterian, of the cheerful auburn beard and the salient nose, hereupon led them tactfully to safe ground in a discussion of the ethnic Trinities.