"What put that into your head—it does not seem suitable?"
"Oh, do you think so? Some one once mentioned it to me. I could preach on it myself, but texts grow wonderfully in his hands. They glow—oh, they get halos about them. He ought to be in a great city."
"Oh, my dear, Mark Rivers has his limitations like all of us. He would die. Even here he has to be watched. McGregor told him last year that he was suffering from the contagion of other people's wickedness with occasional acute fits of over-conscientiousness. Rivers said it was incomprehensible nonsense; he was almost angry."
"And yet it is true, Uncle Jim."
"I'm glad I haven't the disease. I told McGregor as much. By George! he said my variety of the disorder was about other folk's stupidity. Then, when I said that I didn't understand him, he laughed. He makes me furious when he only laughs and won't answer—and won't explain."
"Why, uncle! I love to see him laugh. He laughs all over—he shakes. I told him it was a mirthquake. That set him off again. Was Tom McGregor badly hurt?"
"No, not badly."
"Will aunt go to church to-morrow?"
"No."
"I thought she would not. I should love to see you in uniform."