The voice of Calvin Van de Lear sounded high and meaningful as Podge
caught these sentences:

"Lord, smite the wicked and unjust as thou smotest Sapphira by the side
of Ananias. We find her now in the mask of beauty, again of humility,
even, O Lord, of religion, leading the souls of men down to death and
hell. Thou knowest who stand before Thee to do lip service. All hearts
are open to Thee. If there be any here who have deceived Thine elect by
covetousness, or adultery, or _murder_, Lord, make bare Thine arm!"

The rest of the sentence was lost in the terrific series of sneezes from
Duff Salter, who had taken too big a pinch of snuff and forgot himself,
so as to nearly lift the roof off the little old brick church with his
deeply accentuated,

"Jer-i-cho-whoe!"

Even old Silas Van de Lear looked over the top of the pulpit and smiled,
but, luckily, Duff Salter could hardly hear his own sneezes.

As they left the church Agnes put down her veil, and trembled under the
stare of a hundred investigating critics.

When they were in the street, Podge Byerly remarked:

"Oh! that we had a man to resent such meanness as that. I think that
those who address God with slant arrows to wound others, as is often
done at prayer-meeting, will stand in perdition beside the writers of
anonymous letters."

"They are driving me to the last point," said Agnes. "I can go to church
no more. When will they get between me and heaven? Yet the Lord's will
be done."

CHAPTER V.

THE GHOST.

Spring broke on the snug little suburb, and buds and birds fulfilled
their appointments on the boughs of willows, ailanthuses, lindens, and
maples. Some peach-trees in the back yard of the Zane House hastened to
put on their pink scarves and bonnets, and the boys said that an old
sucker of Penn's Treaty Elm down in a ship-yard was fresh and blithsome
as a second wife. In the hearts and views of living people, too, spring
brought a budding of youthfulness and a gush of sap. Duff Salter
acknowledged it as he looked in Podge Byerly's blue eyes and felt her
hands as they wrapped his scarf around him, or buttoned his gloves.
Whispering, and without the tablets this time, he articulated:

"Happy for you, Mischief, that I am not young as these trees!"

"We'll have you set out!" screamed Podge, "like a piece of hale old
willow, and you'll grow again!"

Duff Salter frequently walked almost to her school with Podge Byerly,
which was far down in t