Red and Black

“‘ So here’s to Dr. Redfield Pepper Burns, bearer of a heavier cross than I have ever borne, and winner of one more shining. ...’”
RED AND BLACK
By GRACE S. RICHMOND Author of “ Mrs. Red Pepper ,” “ Red Pepper Burns ,” “ Red Pepper’s Patients ,” “ Twenty-Fourth of June ,” Etc.
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY FRANCES ROGERS
A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by arrangement with Doubleday, Page & Company
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
TO “MY BEST FRIENDS”
RED AND BLACK
RED AND BLACK
THEIR first sight of each other—Red and Black—was across the space which stretches between pulpit and pew. It’s sometimes a wide space, and impassable; again, it’s not far, and the lines of communication are always open. In this case, neither of them knew, as yet, just what the distance was.
Black—Robert McPherson Black—if you want his full name, had been a bit nervous in the vestry where he put on his gown. He had been preaching only five years, and that in a Southern country parish, when a visiting committee of impressive looking men had come to listen to him—had come again—and once more—and then had startled him with a call to the big suburban town and the fine old, ivy-grown church generally known as the “Stone Church.”
“But, gentlemen,” he had said, swinging about quickly in his study chair when Mr. Lockhart, the chairman of the committee, had asked him if he would consider a call—“I’m—I’m—why, I’m not good enough for you!”