Will half past five be too late for us to come?
It is three now, and we have to go to the station for our valise and
for our children. We left them there, being uncertain whether we should
go back or stop here."

Rebecca said that half past five was their supper hour, and then
accepted an invitation to drive home with Mrs. Cobb. Her face was
flushed and her lip quivered in a way that aunt Sarah had learned to
know, so the homeward drive was taken almost in silence. The bleak wind
and aunt Sarah's quieting presence brought her back to herself,
however, and she entered the brick house cheerily. Being too full of
news to wait in the side entry to take off her rubber boots, she
carefully lifted a braided rug into the sitting-room and stood on that
while she opened her budget.

"There are your shoes warming by the fire," said aunt Jane. "Slip them
right on while you talk."

XIX

DEACON ISRAEL'S SUCCESSOR

"It was a very small meeting, aunt Miranda," began Rebecca, "and the
missionary and his wife are lovely people, and they are coming here to
stay all night and to-morrow with you. I hope you won't mind."

"Coming here!" exclaimed Miranda, letting her knitting fall in her lap,
and taking her spectacles off, as she always did in moments of extreme
excitement. "Did they invite themselves?"

"No," Rebecca answered. "I had to invite them for you; but I thought
you'd like to have such interesting company. It was this way"--

"Stop your explainin', and tell me first when they'll be here. Right
away?"

"No, not for two hours--about half past five."

"Then you can explain, if you can, who gave you any authority to invite
a passel of strangers to stop here over night, when you know we ain't
had any company for twenty years, and don't intend to have any for
another twenty,--or at any rate while I'm the head of the house."

"Don't blame her, Miranda, till you've heard her story," said Jane. "It
was in my mind right along, if we went to the meeting, some such thing
might happen, on account of Mr. Burch knowing father."

"The meeting was a small one," began Rebecca "I gave all your messages,
and everybody was disappointed you couldn't come, for the president
wasn't there, and Mrs. Matthews took the chair, which was a pity, for
the seat wasn't nearly big enough for her, and she reminded me of a
line in a hymn we sang, 'Wide as the heathen nations are,' and she wore
that kind of a beaver garden-hat that always gets on on