f they don't suit the
taste of the meeting! Are you willin' to leave go your nice education,
where you're gettin', fur a couple of damned curls? I don't know what's
got INto you to act so blamed stubborn about keepin' your hair
strubbled 'round your face!"

"But the vanity would still be in my heart even if I did brush them
back. And I don't want to be deceitful."

"Och, come now," urged the doctor, "just till you're got your
certificate a'ready to teach! That wouldn't be long. Then, after that,
you can be as undeceitful as you want."

But Tillie could not be brought to view the matter in this light.

She did not sit at table with the family that day, for that would have
forced her aunt to stay away from the table. Mrs. Wackernagel could
break bread without reproach with all her unconverted household; but
not with a backslider--for the prohibition was intended as a
discipline, imposed in all love, to bring the recalcitrant member back
into the fold.

That afternoon, Tillie and the teacher took a walk together in the
snow-covered woods.

"It all seems so extraordinary, so inexplicable!" Fairchilds repeated
over and over. Like all the rest of the household, he could not be
reconciled to her going. His regret was, indeed, greater than that of
any of the rest, and rather surprised himself. The pallor of Tillie's
face and the anguish in her eyes he attributed to the church discipline
she was suffering. He never dreamed how wholly and absolutely it was
for him.

"Is it any stranger," Tillie asked, her low voice full of pain, "than
that your uncle should send you away because of your UNbelief?" This
word, "unbelief," stood for a very definite thing in New Canaan--a lost
and hopeless condition of the soul. "It seems to me, the idea is the
same," said Tillie.

"Yes," acknowledged Fairchilds, "of course you are right. Intolerance,
bigotry, narrowness--they are the same the world over--and stand for
ignorance always."

Tillie silently considered his words. It had not occurred to her to
question the perfect justice of the meeting's action.

Suddenly she saw in the path before her a half-frozen, fluttering
sparrow. They both paused, and Tillie stooped, gently took it up, and
folded it in her warm shawl. As she felt its throbbing little body
against her hand, she thought of herself in the hand of God. She turned
and spoke her thought to Fairchilds.

"Could I possibly hurt this little bird, which is so entirely at my
m