“If it’s to be like you, and you will marry Eugene and go to the Church of England, I will be a churchwoman and go with you.”

Mr. Perrowne glowered at the lawyer, whom, a moment before, he had greeted in so friendly a way.  Coristine laughed, as he could afford to, and said:  “I’m sorry, Marjorie, that it cannot be as you wish.  I am not serious enough for Miss Du Plessis, nor a sufficient judge of good poetry.  Your friend wouldn’t have me at any price; would you now, Miss Du Plessis?”

“Certainly not with that mode of asking.  How unpleasantly personal children make things.”

Muggins and the young Carruthers were having lots of fun.  He sat up and begged for bread, he ran after sticks and stones thrown by feeble hands, he shook paws with the children, had his ears stroked and his tail pulled with the greatest good-nature.  Right under the eyes of the still dumbfoundered dominie, his owner accompanied Miss Du Plessis into the house, while Coristine prevailed on Marjorie to sing a hymn with a pretty plaintive tune, commencing:—­

     Once in royal David’s city
     Stood a lowly cattle shed,
     Where a mother laid her infant
     In a manger for his bed;
     Mary was that mother mild,
     Jesus Christ her little child.

The old soldier left his grandchildren with Muggins and came to hear the hymn.  “The Howly Vargin bliss the little pet,” he ejaculated, and then crooned a few notes at the end of each verse.

“Fwat is it the Howly Scripchers says, sorr, about little childher an’ the good place?” he asked Coristine.

The lawyer took off his hat, and reverently replied:  “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The veteran crossed himself, and said:  “There niver was a thruer word shpoke or in wroitin’, an’ fwat does the childher, the innicents, know about Pratishtants an’ Cathlics, till me that now?”

As Coristine could not, the pair refilled their pipes and smoked in company, an ideal Evangelical Alliance.

Soon the waggonette came rattling along the road, and Marjorie ran to meet her Uncle John and the minister, with both of whom she was a great favourite.  Mr. Nash also had a word to say to her:  “You remember scolding me for not going to church when I was Mr. Chisholm?  Well, I’ve been there this afternoon, and Mr. Errol told us we are all getting ready here for what we are to do in Heaven.  Now, you’re a wise little girl, and I want you to tell me what I will be able to do when I get there.  It can’t be to hunt up bad people, because there are no bad people in Heaven.  What do you think about it?”

“I know,” answered Marjorie, gravely; “play chess with dead uncles and ministers, and teach tricks to the little children that never growed up.”

“Out of the mouths of babes!” ejaculated Mr. Errol, who overheard the conversation; then continued:  “Could anything be truer?  The training in observation and rapid mental combinations, which has made you successful in your profession, is the foundation of your prowess on the chess board.  Your skill in every sort of make-up enables you to manipulate handkerchiefs and oranges for children’s amusement.  The same training and skill our Father can turn to good account in the upper sanctuary.”