“And Bartley is just so, too. He's always been left to himself. And Flavia will need all the control we can give her,—I know she will. And I shall have her christened in your church, and I shall teach her all about it. She shall go to the Sunday school, and I will go to church, so that she can have an example. I told father I should do it when he was up here, and he said there couldn't be any harm in it. And I've told Bartley, and he doesn't care.”
They were both far too single-minded and too serious to find anything droll in the terms of the adhesion of Marcia's family to her plan, and Mrs. Halleck entered into its execution with affectionate zeal.
“Ben, dear,” she said, tenderly, that evening, when they were all talking it over in the family council, “I hope you didn't drop anything, when that poor creature spoke to you about it this morning, that could unsettle her mind in any way?”
“No, mother,” said Halleck, gently.
“I was sure you didn't,” returned his mother, repentantly.
They had been talking a long time of the matter, and Halleck now left the room.
“Mother! How could you say such a thing to Ben?” cried Olive, in a quiver of indignant sympathy. “Ben say anything to unsettle anybody's religious purposes! He's got more religion now than all the rest of the family put together!”
“Speak for yourself, Olive,” said one of the intermediary sisters.
“Why, Olive, I spoke because I thought she seemed to place more importance on Ben's belonging to the church than anything else, and she seemed so surprised when I told her he didn't belong to any.”
“I dare say she thinks Ben is good when she compares him with that mass of selfishness of a husband of hers,” said Olive. “But I will thank her,” she added, hotly, “not to compare Ben with Bartley Hubbard, even to Bartley Hubbard's disadvantage. I don't feel flattered by it.”