always brightens up with the addition of a fresh crackling stick to the fire.  I shouldn’t have known how to change the lights for Margaret, although I think I had as distinct an impression of her personality as had my wife.  There was nothing disturbing in it; indeed, I never saw her otherwise than serene, even when her voice betrayed strong emotion.  The quality that impressed me most, however, was her sincerity, coupled with intellectual courage and clearness that had almost the effect of brilliancy, though I never thought of her as a brilliant woman.

“What mischief have you been attempting, Mr. Morgan?” asked Margaret, as she took a chair near him.  “Were you trying to make Mr. Lyon comfortable by dragging in Bunker Hill?”

“No; that was Mr. Fairchild, in his capacity as host.”

“Oh, I’m sure you needn’t mind me,” said Mr. Lyon, good-humoredly.  “I landed in Boston, and the first thing I went to see was the Monument.  It struck me as so odd, you know, that the Americans should begin life by celebrating their first defeat.”

“That is our way,” replied Margaret, quickly.  “We have started on a new basis over here; we win by losing.  He who loses his life shall find it.  If the red slayer thinks he slays he is mistaken.  You know the Southerners say that they surrendered at last simply because they got tired of beating the North.”

“How odd!”

“Miss Debree simply means,” I exclaimed, “that we have inherited from the English an inability to know when we are whipped.”

“But we were not fighting the battle of Bunker Hill, or fighting about it, which is more serious, Miss Debree.  What I wanted to ask you was whether you think the domestication of religion will affect its power in the regulation of conduct.”

“Domestication?  You are too deep for me, Mr. Morgan.  I don’t any more understand you than I comprehend the writers who write about the feminization of literature.”

“Well, taking the mystery out of it, the predominant element of worship, making the churches sort of good-will charitable associations for the spread of sociability and good-feeling.”

“You mean making Christianity practical?”

“Partially that.  It is a part of the general problem of what women are going to make of the world, now they have got hold of it, or are getting hold of it, and are discontented with being women, or with being treated as women, and are bringing their emotions into all the avocations of life.”

“They cannot make it any worse than it has been.”

“I’m not sure of that.  Robustness is needed in churches as much as in government.  I don’t know how much the cause of religion is advanced by these church clubs of Christian Endeavor if that is the name, associations of young boys and girls who go about visiting other like clubs in a sufficiently hilarious manner.  I suppose it’s the spirit of the age.  I’m just wondering whether the world is getting to think more of having a good time than it is of salvation.”