, and could not restrain her tongue.

"You seem to bear up tolerably well under this heavy cross, as you call
it," she said sharply.

"The will o' the Lord, Sister Ware--the will o' the Lord!" he responded,
disposed for the instant to put on his pompous manner with her, and then
deciding to smile again as he moved off. The circumstance that he was to
get an additional three hundred dollars yearly in his new place was not
mentioned between them.

By a mutual impulse the young couple, when they had at last gained the
cool open air, crossed the street to the side where over-hanging trees
shaded the infrequent lamps, and they might be comparatively alone. The
wife had taken her husband's arm, and pressed closely upon it as they
walked. For a time no word passed, but finally he said, in a grave
voice,--

"It is hard upon you, poor girl."

Then she stopped short, buried her face against his shoulder, and fell
to sobbing.

He strove with gentle, whispered remonstrance to win her from this mood,
and after a few moments she lifted her head and they resumed their walk,
she wiping her eyes as they went.

"I couldn't keep it in a minute longer!" she said, catching her breath
between phrases. "Oh, WHY do they behave so badly to us, Theron?"

He smiled down momentarily upon her as they moved along, and patted her
hand.

"Somebody must have the poor places, Alice," he said consolingly. "I am
a young man yet, remember. We must take our turn, and be patient. For
'we know that all things work together for good.'"

"And your sermon was so head-and-shoulders above all the others!" she
went on breathlessly. "Everybody said so! And Mrs. Parshall heard it so
DIRECT that you were to be sent here, and I know she told everybody how
much I was lotting on it--I wish we could go right off tonight without
going to her house--I shall be ashamed to look her in the face--and
of course she knows we're poked off to that miserable Octavius.--Why,
Theron, they tell me it's a worse place even than we've got now!"

"Oh, not at all," he put in reassuringly. "It has grown to be a large
town--oh, quite twice the size of Tyre. It's a great Irish place, I've
heard. Our own church seems to be a good deal run down there. We must
build it up again; and the salary is better--a little."

But he too was depressed, and they walked on toward their temporary
lodging in a silence full of mutual grief. It was not until they had
come within sight of this goal