amily ever since the death of his wife, and she wondered
vaguely how it would seem to take care of Laban's children in case
Lloyd should fail to make his peace with God.

When they drove to the door of the meeting-house, Archibald Skinner came
down the walk to help them dismount. Mrs. Morrison shook hands with him
kindly and asked after his sister's cough, and whether his Grandfather
Elliott was still having trouble with his varicose veins. She handed the
children to him one by one, and he lifted them to the ground with an
easy swing, replacing their hats above their tubular curls after the
descent, and grinning good-naturedly into their round, awe-filled,
freckled countenances.

Miss Nancy got out of the wagon backwards, making a maidenly effort to
keep the connection between the hem of her black silk skirt and the top
of her calf-skin shoes inviolate, and brushing the dust of the wagon
wheel from her dress carefully after her safe arrival in the dog-fennel.
Marg'et Ann ignored the chair which had been placed beside the wagon for
the convenience of her elders, and sprang from the wheel, placing her
hands lightly in those of the young man, who deposited her safely beside
her mother and turned toward her sister Rebecca with a blush that
extended to the unfreckled spaces of his hairy, outstretched hands, and
explained his lively interest in the disembarkation of the family.

Laban drove the team around the corner to a convenient hitching-place,
and the women and children went up the walk to the church door. Mrs.
Morrison stopped a moment on the step to remove the hats of the younger
boys, whose awe of the sanctuary seemed to have deprived them of
volition, and they all proceeded down the aisle to the minister's pew.

The pastor and the Rev. Samuel McClanahan were already in the pulpit,
their presence there being indicated by two tufts of hair, one black and
the other sandy, which arose above the high reading-desk; and the elders
having filed into the room and distributed themselves in the ends of the
various well-filled pews, the young men and boys followed their example,
the latter taking a sudden start at the door and projecting themselves
into their places with a concentration of purpose that seemed almost
apoplectic in its results.

There was a deep, premonitory stillness, broken only by the precentor,
who covertly struck his tuning-fork on the round of his chair, and held
it to his ear with a faint, accordant hum