er she had given him
her best neck-tie for the purpose of binding him to his promise, had
overstrained the tension of her nerves. "Where's Abner? He used to go
regular."

"He's gone upstairs so tired that he can barely hist his foot," replied
Sarah. "You'd better let that Bible class alone this evening, Judy. Yo'
salvation ain't dependin' on it, I reckon."

But in Judy's colourless body there dwelt, unknown to Nature, which has
no sense of the ridiculous, the soul of a Cleopatra. At the moment she
would cheerfully have died of an asp sooner than relinquish the study
of Exodus under the eyes of the rector. In the arid stretch of her
existence a great passion had flamed, and like most great passions, it
was ruthless, destroying, and utterly selfish. She had made butter
all day with the hope of that Bible class in her mind, and she was
determined that, whatever it cost the Revercombs, she should have her
reward this evening in the commendation of the young clergyman. That
mere thunder and lightning should keep her from his side appeared to her
little less than absurd. She knew that he had received a call within
the week, and she would have walked unshod over burning ploughshares in
order to hear him say that he had declined it.

"I've got to go," she insisted stubbornly. "If there isn't anybody to go
with me, I'll go alone."

"Why, if you're so bent on it I'll take you myself," said Abel, looking
up from the barrel of his gun, which he was cleaning. His manner to Judy
was invariably kind and even solicitous, to a degree which caused Sarah
to tell herself at times that "it wasn't natural an' wasn't goin' to
last." As long as men would behave themselves quietly, and go about
their business with the unfailing regularity of the orthodox,
she preferred, on the whole, that they should avoid any unusual
demonstration of virtue. An extreme of conduct whether good or bad made
her uneasy. She didn't like, as she put it in her mind, "anything out of
the way." Once when Abel, nettled by some whim of Judy's, had retorted
with a slight show of annoyance, his mother had experienced a positive
sensation of relief, while she said to herself with a kind of triumph
that "the old Adam was thar still."

"You've got that hackin' cough, Abel an' you oughtn't to go out in this
storm," remarked Sarah, with an uneasiness she could not conceal.

"Oh, it won't hurt me. I'm a pine knot. Are you ready, Judy?"

"It's such a little way," said Jud