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Mrs. Mirjanich talked with the Sunday school teacher about her daughter's curls . . . how the silver stars were to be sewn around the hem of the garment, where the gold one was to be on her forehead. Esther listened, chained . . . and then dreamed of herself, who was Titania.

Until she noticed the new minister.

She was consciously surprised that she noticed him. Ministers had been ministers before. Their voices and dresses and expressions were beyond differentiation. She had thought she knew all that was to be known about ministers. There was something about this minister which was new. He was tall, but thick like one who can lift a weight. His forehead was large and his thin hair curled. His skin was dusky as though it had opposed strong winds, and his lips were full as sacks overfilled with their stuff. His large nostrils distended as he preached with a sort of sniffling restlessness as though he needed to but dared not waste energies in using a handkerchief. He did not read a droning sermon. He talked thunder.

"And he is talking to me!" Esther was panic-stricken.

The voice filled the building as a storm fills a tree. It hit the girl's ears as though boxing them. And she quivered from the shock, the vibration of her body sensitized to the man's will.

He despised her. That was simple and plain. He called the heart she brought to church "despicable." He knew she came only because of the theatricals. He spat out the word! He knew she cared only for them, that they, not God, trumpeted. He knew she never thought of God, that she prayed only with her lips.

"For all you profess," he bellowed, "for all that you swagger here to His house, I tell you you are a liar at heart! You have never spoken with God! You have never told Him the truth! I tell you, you have never prayed. What are a man's lips?—shadow of the substance. And you have prayed only with shadows! You have never prayed with your heart!"

He flung a finger at Esther. It was large and hairy. Its nail was broken, its tip was black.

"But now you are going to pray! Search your soul with a flaming taper and speak with God! Tell Him the-truth! I charge you,—pray!" The roar subsided to the stentorian stillness called Silent Prayer.

Esther's hands folded. Then they shivered, as she did, and flung