nner.

At her words Mrs. Mullen, who was walking a little ahead, with her
skirts held up to avoid the yellow stain of the golden-rod, glanced
sharply back, as she had done in church when old Adam had coughed at the
wrong time and spoiled the full effect of a period.

"One reason that Orlando is so helpful to people is that he always sees
so clearly just what they ought to be," she observed. "I don't believe
there's a man in the ministry or out, who has a higher ideal of woman
and her duty."

"But do women ever live up to his ideal of them?"

"It isn't his fault if they don't. All he can do is to point it out to
them earnestly and without ceasing."

They had reached the rectory gate, where she hesitated an instant with
her hand on the latch, and her head bent toward the house in a surprised
and listening attitude. "I declare, Orlando, if I didn't go off and
leave that cat locked up in the parlour!" she exclaimed in horror as she
hurried away.

"Yes," observed Mr. Mullen in his tenderest and most ministerial manner,
"my ideal is a high one, and when I look into your face, I see reflected
all the virtues I would have you reach. I see you the perfect woman,
sharing my sorrows, easing my afflictions---"

Intoxicated by his imagination, he turned toward her as though he beheld
the living embodiment of his eloquence.

For a minute Molly smiled up at him; then, "I wonder if your mother
really locked the cat in the parlour," she rejoined demurely.

After the birthday dinner, at which Mrs. Mullen talked ceaselessly of
Orlando's excellencies, while she reserved the choicest piece of meat
and the fattest dumpling for his plate, Molly tied her cherry-coloured
strings under her chin, and started home, with a basket of apple tarts
for Reuben on her arm. At the crossroads Mr. Mullen left her to return
to an afternoon Sunday school, and she was about to stop at the ordinary
to ask William to see her safely over the pasture, when Abel Revercomb,
looking a trifle awkward in his Sunday clothes, came out of the house
and held out his hand for the basket.

"I thought you'd be coming home this way after dinner," he said, turning
his throat when he moved. His hair was brushed flat on his head as
was his habit on Sundays, and he wore a vivid purple tie, which he had
bought on his last journey to Applegate. He had never looked worse, nor
had he ever felt quite so confident of the entire correctness of his
appearance.

As Molly made