"'Tis a sorry victory, then!" said Aaron.
"You won't mind my telling you what it is like?"
"Certainly not."
"It's like that ugly point in theology that hurt you so, last autumn; and when you had said a cruel Credo, you found sweet flowers lost out of your religion. I know you missed them."
"Oh, Anna!"
"Don't interrupt me; let me finish. It's like making maple-sugar: one eats the sugar, calling it monstrous sweet, and all through the burning sun of summer sits under thin-leaved trees, to pay for the condensation. The point is, it doesn't pay,--the truest bit of sentiment the last winter has brought to me."
"Is this Anna?" asked the minister.
"Yes, Aaron, it is I, Anna."
"You're not what you were when last here."
"Quite a different person, Sir. But what is your new sexton's name?"