"You mustn't get excited," she said, laying her little work- worn hand upon his shoulder; "or you'll bring on the bleeding." "Aye," he answered, "I must be careful I don't die on Christmas Day.

It would make a fine text, that, for their sermons." He lapsed into silence: his almost transparent hands stretched out towards the fire.
Mr.Simson fidgeted.

The quiet of the room, broken only by Mary's ministering activities, evidently oppressed him.
"Paper going well, sir ?" he asked.

"I often read it myself." "It still sells," answered the proprietor, and editor and publisher, and entire staff of _The Rationalist_.
"I like the articles you are writing on the History of Superstition.
Quite illuminating," remarked Mr.Simson.
"It's many a year, I am afraid, to the final chapter," thought their author.
"They afford much food for reflection," thought Mr.Simson, "though I cannot myself go as far as you do in including Christianity under that heading." Mary frowned at him; but Mr.Simson, eager for argument or not noticing, blundered on:-- "Whether we accept the miraculous explanation of Christ's birth," continued Mr.Simson, in his best street-corner voice, "or whether, with the great French writer whose name for the moment escapes me, we regard Him merely as a man inspired, we must, I think, admit that His teaching has been of help: especially to the poor." The fanatic turned upon him so fiercely that Mr.Simson's arm involuntarily assumed the posture of defence.
"To the poor ?" the old man almost shrieked.

"To the poor that he has robbed of all power of resistance to oppression by his vile, submissive creed! that he has drugged into passive acceptance of every evil done to them by his false promises that their sufferings here shall win for them some wonderful reward when they are dead.