, but it entailed no great weight of responsibility,
since practically all the actual work of the league had from the very
outset been generously assumed by Doctor Duvall. It was he who cared for
the funds, he who handled disbursements, he who conducted the
proceedings, he who made the principal addresses on meeting nights, he
who between meetings labored without cessation to spread educational
propaganda. That he found time for all these purposeful endeavors and
yet crowded in such frequent opportunity for mingling socially among the
lambs of his flock--notably the ewe lambs--was but evidence,
accumulating daily, of his genius for leadership and direction.

This night the session opened with a prayer--by Doctor Duvall; an
eloquent and a moving prayer indeed, its sonorous periods set off and
adorned with noble big words and quotations in foreign tongues. The
prayer would be followed, it had been announced, by the reading of the
minutes of the previous session, after which Doctor Duvall would speak
at length with particular reference to things lately accomplished and
the even more important things in contemplation for the near future.

Standing for the prayer, Jeff could look out over what a master of words
before now has fitly described as a sea of upturned faces--faces black,
brown and yellow. Had he been minded to give thought to details he might
have noted how at every polysyllabic outburst from the inspired
invocationist old Uncle Ike Fauntleroy, himself accounted a powerful
hand at wrestling with sinners in prayer, was visibly jolted by
admiration; might, if he had had a head for figures, have kept count of
the hearty amens with which Sister Eldora Menifee punctuated each pause
when Doctor Duvall was taking a fresh breath; might have cast a side
glance upon Ophelia Stubblefield in a new and most becoming hat with
ostrich plumage grandly surmounting it. But under the hand which he held
reverently cupped over his brow Jeff's eyes were fixed upon a certain
focal point,--to wit, the door of the main entrance at the length of the
hall from him. It was as though Jeff waited for something or somebody he
was expecting.

Nor did he have so very long to wait. The prayer was done and well done.
In its wake, so to speak, there spouted up from every side veritable
geysers of hallelujahs and amens. The honorary secretary, Brother Lemuel
Diuguid, smelling grandly of expensive hair ointments--Brother Diuguid
being by calling a h