25th.
To-day what should Deacon Quirk do but make a solemn call on Mrs. Forceythe, for the purpose of asking—and this with a hint that he wished he had asked before she became a member of the Homer First Congregational Church—whether there were truth in the rumors, now rife about town, that she was a Swedenborgian!
Aunt Winifred broke out laughing, and laughed merrily. The Deacon frowned.
“I used to fancy that I believed in Swedenborg,” she said, as soon as she could sober down a little.
The Deacon pricked up his ears, with visions of excommunications and councils reflected on every feature.
“Until I read his books,” she finished.
“Oh!” said the Deacon. He waited for more, but she seemed to consider the conversation at an end.
“So then you—if I understand—are not a Swedenborgian, ma’am?”
“If I were, I certainly should have had no inducement to join myself to your church,” she replied, with gentle dignity. “I believe, with all my heart, in the same Bible and the same creed that you believe in, Deacon Quirk.”
“And you live your creed, which all such genial Christians do not find it necessary to do,” I thought, as the Deacon in some perplexity took his departure, and she returned with a smile to her sewing.