'Do? I cannot say yet. I am a soldier but just enlisted, and do not
know where my orders will place me or what work they will give me. Only
I have enlisted; and that is what I wanted you to know at once.
Mother, it is a great honour to be a soldier of Christ.'
'I should think,—if I did not see you and hear your voice,—I should certainly think I heard a Methodist talking. I suppose that is the way they do.'
'Did you ever hear one talk, mother?'
'No, and do not want to hear one, even if it were my own son!' she answered angrily.
'But in all that I have been saying, if they say it too, the Methodists are right, mother. A redeemed sinner is one bought with a price, and thenceforth neither his spirit nor his body can be his own. And his happiness is not to be his own.'
Mrs. Dallas was violently moved, yet she had much self-command and habitual dignity of manner, and would not break down now. More pitiful than tears was the haughty gesture of her head as she turned it aside to hide the quivering lips. And more tender than words was the air with which her son presently stooped and took her hand.
'Mother!' he said gently and tenderly.
'Pitt, I never would have believed this of you!' she said with bitter emphasis.
'You never could have believed anything so good of me.'
'What are you going to do?' she repeated vehemently. 'What does all this amount to? or is it anything but dissenting rant?'