Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/88

 what their elders and betters had to say and to giggle still more.

Mrs. Eaton was on her mettle. There were atheists in the house, and people who believed in the descent or ascent of man from a monkey. Obviously such beliefs were no fault of Mrs. Ruggles. You could always look for a man at the bottom of blasphemy and free thinking. For Mrs. Ruggles, therefore, Mrs. Eaton had something the attitude which a condescending but sympathetic woman might have for a delicate sister woman who through no fault of her own was constantly exposed to contagious and fatal fevers.

Toward Mr. Ruggles she affected an air of complacent pity.

"Yes," she said, "it is a sweet old house. What I chiefly love about it is the sense of peace and security which it gives me. Many wise and godly men and women have lived in this house and left a certain something of their own righteousness and strong Christianity. Nothing so unites a family as a common belief—faith."

Even Mrs. Eaton felt that what she had said was a little forced and at the same time a little mixed. There was a short silence, which Mr. Ruggles broke with a most innocent expression on his face.