a sensation. An explanation would certainly be
demanded of Tillie before the week was out.

After the service, they did not stop long for "sociability,"--the
situation was too strained,--but hurried out to their buggy as soon as
they could escape.

Tillie marveled at herself as, on the way home, she found how small was
her concern about the disapproval of the meeting, and even about her
sin itself, before the fact that the teacher thought her curls adorable.

Aunty Em, too, marveled as she perceived the girl's strange
indifference to the inevitable public disgrace at the hands of the
brethren and sisters. Whatever was the matter with Tillie?

At the dinner-table, to spare Tillie's evident embarrassment (perhaps
because of the teacher's presence), Mrs. Wackernagel diverted the
curiosity of the family as to how the meeting had received the curls.

"What did yous do all while we was to meeting?" she asked of her two
daughters.

"Me and Amanda and Teacher walked to Buckarts Station," Rebecca
answered.

"Did yous, now?"

"Up the pike a piece was all the fu'ther I felt fur goin'," continued
Eebecca, in a rather injured tone; "but Amanda she was so fur seein'
oncet if that fellah with those black MUStache was at the blacksmith's
shop yet, at Buckarts! I tole her she needn't be makin' up to HIM, fur
he's keepin' comp'ny with Lizzie Hershey!"

"Say, mom," announced Amanda, ignoring her sister's rebuke, "I stopped
in this morning to see Lizzie Hershey, and she's that spited about
Teacher's comin' here instead of to their place that she never so much
as ast me would I spare my hat!"

"Now look!" exclaimed Mrs. Wackernagel. "And when I said, after while,
'Now I must go,' she was that unneighborly she never ast me, 'What's
your hurry?'"

"Was she that spited!" said Mrs. Wackernagel, half pityingly. "Well, it
was just like Sister Jennie Hershey, if she didn't want Teacher stayin'
there, to tell him right out. Some ain't as honest. Some talks to
please the people."

"What fur sermont did yous have this morning?" asked Mr. Wackernagel,
his mouth full of chicken.

"We had Levi Harnish. He preached good," said Mrs. Wackernagel. "Ain't
he did, Tillie?"

"Yes," replied Tillie, coloring with the guilty consciousness that
scarcely a word of that sermon had she heard.

"I like to hear a sermont, like hisn, that does me good to my heart,"
said Mrs. Wackernagel.

"Levi Harnish, he's a learnt preacher," said her husband, t