calmly, when her husband expressed surprise over her going, “but I don’t hate them now. There is no sense in hating Methodists when there is a Kaiser or a Hindenburg in the world.”
So Miss Cornelia went. Norman Douglas and his wife went too. And Whiskers-on-the-moon strutted up the aisle to a front pew, as if he fully realized what a distinction he conferred upon the building. People were somewhat surprised that he should be there, since he usually avoided all assemblages connected in any way with the war. But Mr. Meredith had said that he hoped his session would be well represented, and Mr. Pryor had evidently taken the request to heart. He wore his best black suit and white tie, his thick, tight, iron-grey curls were neatly arranged, and his broad, red, round face looked, as Susan most uncharitably thought, more “sanctimonious” than ever.
“The minute I saw that man coming into the church, looking like that, I felt that mischief was brewing, Mrs. Dr. dear,” she said afterwards. “What form it would take I could not tell, but I knew from the face of him that he had come there for no good.”
The prayer-meeting opened conventionally and continued quietly. Mr. Meredith spoke first with his usual eloquence and feeling. Mr. Arnold followed with an address which even Miss Cornelia had to confess was irreproachable in taste and subject-matter.
And then Mr. Arnold asked Mr. Pryor to lead in prayer.
Miss Cornelia had always averred that Mr. Arnold had no gumption. Miss Cornelia was not apt to err on the side of charity in her judgment of Methodist ministers, but in this case she did not greatly over-
