prove stormy. Do you think it can
be possible that our Heavenly Father knows that so many of his people
have made it an evening of prayer? Or if he does, can't he possibly send
some poor little sinner to meeting, if it be his will to do so, as well
as those saints you spoke of?"

The minister did not reply for a little. Presently he turned slowly from
the window and met his wife's gaze; then he laughed, a low, half-amused,
half-ashamed laugh. He could afford to do so, for be it known this was a
new order of things in the minister's household. Truth to tell, it was
the little wife who became out of sorts with the weather, with the
walking, with the people, and had to be reasoned, or coaxed, or petted
into calm by the grave, earnest, faithful, patient minister; and his
rebellious spirit had been slain to-night by the use of some of his own
weapons, hurled at him indeed in a pretty, graceful, feminine way, but
he recognized them at once, and could afford to laugh. Afterward when he
had buckled his overshoes and buttoned his overcoat, and prepared to
brave the storm in answer to the tolling bell, he came over to the
little rocking-chair.

"My dear," he said, "we will kneel down and have a word of prayer, that
our Father will have this meeting in his care, and bring good out of
seeming ill."

And as they knelt together they had changed places again, and the
minister's wife looked up with a kind of wistful reverence to the calm,
earnest face of her husband.

"It storms like the mischief," Mr. Roberts said on this same evening, as
he closed the door with a bang, and a shrug of his shoulders. "Very few
people will venture out this evening. Tode, if you want an hour or two
for a frolic, now is your time to take it. After you have been up with
the mail you can go where you like until the train is due."

Here was fun for Tode. This would give him two full hours, and he had at
least two dozen schemes for filling up the time; but it chanced that
wind and sleet and cold were too much even for him.

"Jolly!" he said. "What a regular old stunner _that_ was," as a gust of
wind nearly blew him away; and he clapped both hands to his head to see
if his cap had withstood the shock.

"This ain't just the charmingest kind of an evening that ever I was out.
I'd tramp back to our hotel quicker, only a fellow don't like to spend
his evening just exactly where he does all the others when it's a
holiday. I wonder what's in here? They're si