"Has it taken you that way, Aunt Bell?"
"And France, the saddest example of a nation without a God, and succeeding generations will only add a new lustre to our present resplendent glory, bound together by the most sacred ties of goodwill; independent, yet acknowledging the sovereignty of Omnipotence, and it was fraught with vital interest to every thinking man——"
"Spare me, Aunt Bell—it's like Coney Island, with all those carrousels going around and five bands playing at once!"
"But his peroration! I can't pretend to give you any idea of its beauties——"
"Don't!"
"Get him to declaim it for you. It begins in the most impressive language about his standing on top of the Rocky Mountains one day and placing his feet upon a solid rock, he saw a tempest gathering in the valley far below. So he watches the storm—in his own language, of course—while all around him is sunshine. And such should be our aim in life, to plant our feet on the solid rock of—how provoking! I can't remember what the rock was—anyway, we are to bid those in the valley below to cease their bickerings and come up to the rock—I think it was Intellectual Greatness— No!—Unselfishness—that's it. And the title of the paper was a sermon in itself—'The Temporal Advantage of the Individual No Norm of Morality.' Isn't that a beautiful thought in itself? Nancy, that chap will waste himself until he has a city parish."
There was silence for a little time before Aunt Bell asked, as one having returned to baser matters:
"I wonder if the jacket of my gray suit came back from that clumsy tailor. I forgot to ask Ellen if an express package came."
And Nancy, whose look was bent far into the dusk, answered:
"Oh, I wonder if he will come back!"