se house he chanced to be.

"Thank you, Mr. Hardcastle, not this morning. I was just telling Miss
Phebe I ought to be at work. Good-morning, Mrs. Lane. Good-morning, Mrs.
Upjohn--Mrs. Hardcastle--Miss Delano--Miss Brooks."

And with a cheery bow to each individual head, craning itself forward to
have a look at the unusual young man who had work to do, the Rev. Mr.
Halloway walked off to his rectory, which was directly opposite, giving a
merry glance back at Phebe from the other side of the street. Phebe was
still smiling as she went with the stocking to its owner.

"Thank you, my dear," said Mrs. Hardcastle, taking it from her without
looking. "Oh, my child, how could you be so careless! You have let me
pull out one of the needles. Well--well."

Phebe took the work silently back, and sat herself down on a stool to
remedy the mischief.

"A nice young fellow enough," remarked Mr. Hardcastle,
condescendingly, returning to the group of ladies. "But he'll never
set the river on fire."

"No need he should, is there?" said Mrs. Upjohn, looking up sharply from
her embroidery. She always contradicted, if only for argument's sake, so
that even her assents usually took a negative form. "It's enough if he's
able to put out a fire in _that_ Church. It doesn't take much of a man, I
understand, to fill an Episcopalian pulpit." (Nobody had ever yet been
able to teach the good dame the difference between Episcopal and
Episcopalian, and she preferred the undivided use of the latter word.)
"Any thing will go down with them."

"Yes, my dear Mrs. Upjohn. It's undeniably a poor Church, a poor Church,
and I hope we may all live to witness its downfall. It must have been a
hard day for you, Mrs. Lane, when Phebe went over to it. I never forgave
old Mr. White for receiving her into it; I never did, indeed."

Phebe only smiled.

"Humph!" said Mrs. Lane, biting off a thread. "Phebe may go where she
likes, for all me, so long as only she goes. Baptist I was bred, and
Baptist I'll be buried; but it's with churches as with teas, I say. One's
as good as another, but people may take green, or black, or mixed, as
best agrees with their stomachs."

"That's a very dangerous doctrine," said Mrs. Upjohn. "Push it a little
further, and you'll have babes and sucklings living on beef, and their
elders dining on pap."

"Humph!" ejaculated Mrs. Lane again. "If they like it, what's the odds?"

"He-he!" snickered Miss Brooks.

"Well, now," resumed