“There,” cried Eleanor, triumphantly, “I’ve always said Mr. Hodder had a spiritual personality.  You feel—­you feel there is truth shut up inside of him which he cannot communicate.  I’ll tell you who impresses me in that way more strongly than any one else—­Mr. Bentley.  And he doesn’t come to church any more.”

“Mr. Bentley,” said her, mother, “is a saint.  Your father tried to get him to dinner to-day, but he had promised those working girls of his, who live on the upper floors of his house, to dine with them.  One of them told me so.  Of course he will never speak of his kindnesses.”

“Mr. Bentley doesn’t bother his head about theology,” said Sally.  “He just lives.”

“There’s Eldon Parr,” suggested George Bridges, mentioning the name of the city’s famous financier; “I’m told he relieved Mr. Bentley of his property some twenty-five years ago.  If Mr. Hodder should begin to preach the modern heresy which you desire, Mr Parr might object.  He’s very orthodox, I’m told.”

“And Mr. Parr,” remarked the modern Evelyn, sententiously, “pays the bills, at St. John’s.  Doesn’t he, father?”

“I fear he pays a large proportion of them,” Mr. Waring admitted, in a serious tone.

“In these days,” said Evelyn, “the man who pays the bills is entitled to have his religion as he likes it.”

“No matter how he got the money to pay them,” added Phil.

“That suggests another little hitch in the modern church which will have to be straightened out,” said George Bridges.

“’Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.’”

“Why, George, you of all people quoting the Bible!” Eleanor exclaimed.

“And quoting it aptly, too,” said Phil Goodrich.

“I’m afraid if we began on the scribes and Pharisees, we shouldn’t stop with Mr. Parr,” Asa Wiring observed, with a touch of sadness.

“In spite of all they say he has done, I can’t help feeling sorry for him,” said Mrs. Waring.  “He must be so lonely in that huge palace of his beside the Park, his wife dead, and Preston running wild around the world, and Alison no comfort.  The idea of a girl leaving her father as she did and going off to New York to become a landscape architect!”

“But, mother,” Evelyn pleaded, “I can’t see why a woman shouldn’t lead her own life.  She only has one, like a man.  And generally she doesn’t get that.”

Mrs. Waring rose.

“I don’t know what we’re coming to.  I was taught that a woman’s place was with her husband and children; or, if she had none, with her family.  I tried to teach you so, my dear.”

“Well,” said Evelyn, “I’m here yet.  I haven’t Alison’s excuse.  Cheer up, mother, the world’s no worse than it was.”

“I don’t know about that,” answered Mrs. Waring.

“Listen!” ejaculated Eleanor.