There seems to be no opening." Mrs.Gwynne apparently lost interest.

"Good-bye," she said simply, shaking hands with them both, and without further words left the room with her boy.

For some distance they walked together along the dark road in silence.

Then in an awed voice the boy said: "How could you do it, mother?
You were not a bit afraid." "Afraid of what, the Rector ?" "No, not the Rector--but to speak up that way before all the people." "It was hard to speak," said his mother, "very hard, but it was harder to keep silent.

It did not seem right." The boy's heart swelled with a new pride in his mother.