ry dropped out of the
history of Pointview until December."

XIII

IN WHICH THE MINISTER GETS INTO LOVE AND TROUBLE

"Cub resigned his place in my office next day, and confessed his
purpose, and I heard him with sober respect and tried in every proper
way to save him. It wouldn't work.

"The lines of panic had left the face of Cub. The two-pound expression
had departed from it. The faintness of chaperons would no longer
imperil his comfort.

"'A hundred and four pounds of candy and twenty suppers, and all for
nothing!' I exclaimed. 'You ruin a girl's digestion and chuck her
over. It isn't fair.'

"'But, sir, I found that I didn't love her,' said Cub.

"'What a waste of violets, confectionery, and crab-meat!'

"'Yes, sir, in a way; but you see I had to have my training in
society,' Cub declared.

"What was the use? Cub had no more humor than a sewing-machine.

"'The wedding day drew on apace, and just before its arrival a
notorious weekly in New York gave the lady a drubbing. Certain
circumstances that made her first marriage unhappy were plainly hinted
at. The town shuddered with amazement. Cub stood pat, but the
Episcopal minister refused to marry them. The Baptist minister balked.
It looked like a postponement, but the knot was tied, on schedule
time, by the Reverend Robert Knowles. That made no end of talk, and a
small party of insurgents left his church. Deacon Benson was on the
point of pulling out, and swore so much about it that I advised him to
hang on for his own sake.

"'But there ain't much to hang on to,' said the Deacon.

"'Mrs. Revere-Chalmers-Sayles held a mortgage on the property of the
Baptist Society of Pointview, and asked me to foreclose it.

"'I have another mortgage on the Congregational church, and they're
behind in their interest, but I'm not going to push them,' she said to
me.

"So young Mr. Knowles had acted from motives of business prudence, and
was not much at fault. The old church had ceased to live within its
means and had entered the 'charge it' van, and was trying to serve two
masters.

"Betsey and I paid both mortgages and threw them in the fire.

"Young Mr. Knowles came to see us with Marie, and brought the thanks
of the parish. They were a good-looking couple.

"This minister of the First Congregational Church of Pointview now
aspired to be the prime minister of its first heiress. Their
acquaintance, which had begun in the arrangements for the servants'