I think I'll baby myself a little.

"I do get so homesick for the good old parsonage days, and all the
bunch, and-- Still, it is nice to be a baby in business, and think how
wonderful it will be when I graduate from my baby-hood, and have brains
enough to write books, big books, good books, for all the world to read.

"Lovingly as always,

"Baby Con."

When Carol read that letter she cried, and rubbed her face against her
husband's shoulder,--regardless of the dollar powder on his black coat.

"A teeny bit for father," she explained, "for all his girls are gone.
And a little bit for Fairy, but she has Gene. And quite a lot for
Larkie, but she has Jim and Violet." And then, clasping her arm about
his shoulders, which, despite her teasing remonstrance, he allowed to
droop a little, she cried exultantly: "But not one bit for me, for I
have you, and Connie is a poor, poverty-stricken, wretched little waif,
with nothing in the world worth having, only she doesn't know it yet."

CHAPTER IV

A WOMAN IN THE CHURCH

And there was a woman in the church.

There always is,--one who stands apart, distinct, different,--in the
community but not with it, in the church but not of it.

The woman in David's church was of a languorous, sumptuous type, built
on generous proportions, with a mass of dark hair waving low on her
forehead, with dark, straight-gazing, deep-searching eyes, the kind
that impel and hold all truanting glances. She was slow in movement,
suggesting a beautiful and commendable laziness. In public she talked
very little, laughing never, but often smiling,--a curious smile that
curved one corner of her lip and drew down the tip of one eye. She had
been married, but no one knew anything about her husband. She was a
member of the church, attended with most scrupulous regularity,
assisted generously in a financial way, was on good terms with every
one, and had not one friend in the congregation. The women were afraid
of her. So were the men. But for different reasons.

Those who would ask questions of her, ran directly against the concrete
wall of the crooked smile, and turned away abashed, unsatisfied.

Carol was very shy with her. She was not used to the type. There had
been women in her father's churches, but they had been of different
kinds. Mrs. Waldemar's straight-staring eyes embarrassed her. She
listened silently when the other women talked of her, half admiringly,
half sneeringly,