"Busy, busy, busy all the day. Busy, busy, busy ..." sounded suddenly from the street in Ellen's thin soprano. Doctor June looked down at her, his expression scarcely changing, because it was always serenely soft. But the young clergyman saw with amazement the strange little figure with her unbound hair and her arms high and swaying, and as she took some steps of her dance before the gate, he questioned his host with uplifted brows.
"A little mad," the doctor said, nodding, "like us all. She sings in the streets of a glad morning, and dances now and then. We take ours out in tangential opinions. It is nearly the same thing."
The young clergyman's face lighted responsively at this, and then he deferentially clinched his argument.
"There is a case in point," said he. "That poor creature there—what has the Lord put in her hand?"
Doctor June looked thoughtful.
"Nothing," he declared, "for any fight. But I'm not sure that she isn't made to be a leaven. The kingdom of God works like a leaven, you know, my dear young friend. Not like a dum-dum bullet."
"But—that poor creature. A leaven?" doubted the Reverend Arthur Bliss.
"I shouldn't wonder," said Doctor June, "I shouldn't wonder. I'm not so sure as I used to be that I can recognize leaven at first sight."
"Ah, that's it!" cried his guest. "But a soldier, now, is a soldier!"
Then they smiled their lack of acquiescence, and went back to the figures for the fiscal year.