grateful that Aunt Maria allowed her to
wear a hat. Many little girls, some smaller than she, came to church
every Sunday wearing silk bonnets like their elders!--she felt grateful
for her hat--any hat!

Tugging at the elastic under her chin, then smoothing her handkerchief
and placing it in her sleeve--she had seen Miss Lee dispose of a
handkerchief in that way--she walked to the little green gate and
watched the road leading from Greenwald.

Her heart leaped when she saw the teacher come down the long road. She
opened the gate to go to meet her, then suddenly stood still. Miss Lee
as she appeared in the schoolroom, in white linen dress or trim serge
skirt and tailored waist, was attractive enough to cause Phoebe's heart
to flutter with admiration a dozen times a day; but Miss Lee in Sunday
morning church attire was so irresistibly sweet that the vision sent the
little girl's heart pounding and caused a strange shyness to possess
her. The semi-tailored dress of dark blue taffeta, the sheer white
collar, the small black hat with its white wings, the silver coin purse
in the gloved hand--no detail escaped the keen eyes of the child. She
looked down at her cotton dress--it had seemed so pretty just a moment
ago. But, of course, such dresses and gloves and hats were for
grown-ups! "But just you wait," she thought, "when I grow up I'll look
like that, too, see if I don't!"

Miss Lee, smiling, never knew the depths she stirred in the heart of the
little girl.

"Am I late, Phoebe?"

"Ach, no. Just on time. Pop, he went a'ready, though. He goes early
still to open the meeting-house. We'll go right away, as soon as Aunt
Maria locks up. But what for did you bring a pocketbook?"

"For the offering."

"Offering?"

"The church offering, Phoebe. Surely you know what that is if you go to
church every Sunday. Don't you have collection plates or baskets passed
about in your church for everybody to put their offerings on them?"

"Why, no, we don't have that in our church! What for do they do that in
any church?"

"To pay the preachers' salaries and----"

"Goodness," Phoebe laughed, "it would take a vonderful lot to pay all
the preachers that preach at our church. Sometimes three or four preach
at one meeting. They have to work week-days and get their money just
like other men do. Men come around to the house sometimes for money for
the poor, and when the meeting-house needs a new roof or something like
that, everybody hel