There was a chorus of astonishment from the ladies.
"'Christian' would be a pretty good word," said Gifford slowly. "Isn't he following Christ's example rather more literally than most of us?"
"But to live on his wife!" cried Dr. Howe.
"I don't believe," Gifford responded, smiling, "that that would distress John Ward at all."
"Apparently not," said the rector significantly.
"He loves her too much," Gifford went on, "to think of himself apart from her; don't you see? They are one; what difference does it make about the money?"
"Could you do it?" asked Dr. Howe.
"Well, no," Gifford said, shrugging his shoulders; "but then, I'm not John Ward."
"Thank Heaven!" said the rector devoutly.
"But it is a mistake, all the same," Gifford went on; "it is unbusiness-like, to say nothing of being bad for his people to have the burden of support lifted from them; it pauperizes them spiritually."