"Yes."
"Why I told you—people that pretend to be better than people in general. People in general, you know, get on without pretending much to be good at all: and of course it's disagreeable to be brought short up at every turn with 'you ought not,' and 'you ought;' and whether it is said or acted don't make much difference. Now here's this child, a little while ago, thought she mustn't say anything was good but a minister.
"Do you mean Christians?" said Mr. Linden.
"Well—" said Miss Essie, "I hope we're all Christians—aren't we?
We're not heathens."
"I mean the followers of Christ. Is that what you meant? I do wear the badge of that 'Legion of Honour.'"
Miss Essie looked fidgeted. Faith was letting her ice-cream melt while she listened. Mrs. Stoutenburgh in the midst of supper-table attentions gave an anxious eye and ear to the conference, which she would not interrupt.
"Well now tell me what you mean by that?" said Miss Essie, feeling herself in some confusion, of terms at least.
"Can I find plainer words? You know what was meant by a follower in the old feudal times?"
"No I don't," said Miss Essie beginning to sip her coffee again. "Tell me!"
"A follower was one who binding himself to the service his lord required of him, thenceforth paid it—in peace or in war,—to the end of his life. And the terms of agreement were two-fold,—fidelity on the one side, protection on the other. 'They follow me,' says Christ, 'and I give unto them eternal life.'"