The First Soprano | Page 5

are studied and unnatural. His voice quavers to order, and if I should see tears on his face I should think he had pumped them up someway for effect. I don't like to be practiced on. I should like a man to believe something earnestly and say it honestly."
And so he stayed away for the most part, but like many a man who is a sceptic, found that the subject of the Christ would not down, and he could not let it alone. So after absences he would go again to hear, though it should be only to gain fresh occasion for his doubts or cynical criticisms. To-day he was the first to arrive at home and met Winifred in the hall as she came in.
"The spiritual priesthood did very well to-day, Winnie," he said, by way of greeting. "I hope you all sang 'with grace in your hearts unto the Lord.' I am sure Frothingham did. I saw him--eh, Winnie, what's the matter?"
For Winifred had turned a quivering face toward her brother.
"I didn't, Hubert," she said. "There was no grace in my heart." And then she hastened up the stairs to her room.
"Hm-m!" said Hubert reflectively, and repeated the observation at intervals until dinner was served.

CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE OF GRAY
The family gathered for dinner with its usual decorum. Winifred sat opposite the young minister, and Hubert was beside him. Mr. Robert Gray carved the turkey with his usual skill and the sharpest of knives. He began his anticipated discussion with the preacher:
"Your sermon fitted pretty closely to-day, Mr. Bond," he said, as he separated a joint successfully.
"Did it really?" said Mr. Bond, with a smile that lit up a singularly pleasant face. "I am glad to hear it. That is what sermons are for, I believe?"
"Just so," said Mr. Gray, and he added with a little chuckle of enjoyment, "I like it--I like it. We need it, I assure you. There is no question about that. Why, Winnie, not a bit of the fowl? You are losing your appetite, child. Yes, sir, we need to be stirred up. If there is anything I believe in, it is sincerity. But now, don't you think, Mr. Bond, that you put it just a little grain too stiff?"
"In what way, Mr. Gray?"
"Well, now, I say the Apostles' Creed. I know it by heart. I don't know how many hundreds of times I have said it. It says itself. Perhaps that is why I don't always stop to think what it does say. But I do not suppose there is a word in it that I do not believe. Now if my mind happens to wander while I am, saying it--if it happens, mind you--"
"Father, Julia is waiting for Mr. Bond's plate," interposed Mrs. Gray softly from the other end of the table.
"I beg your pardon." Then, as the delinquent plate went to its destination, "If my mind happens to wander to some little matter of business, or something or other, while I say the Creed--_am I a hypocrite_?"
The merchant propounded the question with a note of triumph, as though the bold-spoken minister were rather cornered now. Mr. Bond answered respectfully, but with subdued amusement:
"I think, Mr. Gray, that the Lord would recognize the absence of insincere intent, but that so far as worship goes, you might as well set some Tibetan prayer-wheels going."
A gleam of enjoyment shot from Hubert's eyes, and a laugh almost escaped him.
"Ah, just so--just so!" said Mr. Gray, a little discomfited. "But would it be better not to say it?"
"It would be better to mean it," said Mr. Bond.
"He parries well," thought Hubert.
"Winifred," said Mrs. Gray, off whose smooth nature these discussions rolled harmlessly, "the music was very fine this morning."
Winifred, who would have preferred almost any subject to this, cast an appealing glance at her mother, but it was unheeded. She had hoped Mr. Bond would not recognize her as the singer.
Mrs. Gray went on: "Mrs. Butterworth, who sits just the other side of the partition from us, you know, was quite carried away. She looked volumes at me, but she just whispered 'heavenly!' She said after church she hoped you would come to her party next week and bring your songs. You have such a gift, she said."
And Mrs. Gray herself sighed religiously at the thought of Winnie's "gift." Winnie could have sighed, too, but it was with torture.
Mrs. Gray was a comfortable lady, absorbed in the quiet machinery of a conventionally proper life. She loved her family, her church, and a moderate amount of society. She loved things. Quiet satisfaction beamed from the gentle eyes on the choice silver of the dining-room, on her blue antique china, on the costly, tasteful accessories of the drawing-room, and, indeed, on all the well chosen appointments of the