"Oh, Nelson, how can you say such a thing, when you came to get him!" exclaimed his sister."
"I recommended him because I thought he had none," Langmaid declared.
"He'll be a bishop some day—every one says so," said Mrs. Whitely, indignantly.
"That reassures me," said her brother.
"I can't see why they sent you—you hardly ever go to church," she cried. "I don't mind telling you, Nelson, that the confidence men place in you is absurd."
"You've said that before," he replied. "I agree with you. I'm not going on my judgment—but on yours and Gerald's, because I know that you wouldn't put up with anything that wasn't strictly all-wool orthodox."
"I think you're irreverent," said his sister, "and it's a shame that the canons permit such persons to sit on the vestry . . . ."
"Gerald," asked Nelson Langmaid of his brother-in-law that night, after his sister and the girls had gone to bed, "are you sure that this young man's orthodox?"
"He's been here for over ten years, ever since he left the seminary, and he's never done or said anything radical yet," replied the mill owner of Bremerton. "If you don't want him, we'd be delighted to have him stay. We're not forcing him on you, you know. What the deuce has got into you? You've talked to him for two hours, and you've sat looking at him at the dinner table for another two. I thought you were a judge of men."
Nelson Langmaid sat silent.