tion.

"And I don't want you to," was the calm reply.

Another look of wide-eyed astonishment took in the preacher's face.
These were strange words from one of his guild. But without noticing the
surprise he had created, Dokesbury went on: "What I want is that you
will take me fishing as soon as you can. I never get tired of fishing
and I am anxious to go here. Tom Scott says you fish a great deal about
here."

"Why, we kin go dis ve'y afternoon," exclaimed 'Lias, in relief and
delight; "I's mighty fond o' fishin', myse'f."

"All right; I'm in your hands from now on."

'Lias drew his shoulders up, with an unconscious motion. The preacher
saw it, and mentally rejoiced. He felt that the first thing the boy
beside him needed was a consciousness of responsibility, and the lifted
shoulders meant progress in that direction, a sort of physical
straightening up to correspond with the moral one.

On seeing her son walk in with the minister, Aunt "Ca'line's" delight
was boundless. "La! Brothah Dokesbury," she exclaimed, "wha'd you fin'
dat scamp?"

"Oh, down the street here," the young man replied lightly. "I got hold
of his name and made myself acquainted, so he came home to go fishing
with me."

"'Lias is pow'ful fon' o' fishin', hisse'f. I 'low he kin show you some
mighty good places. Cain't you, 'Lias?"

"I reckon."

'Lias was thinking. He was distinctly grateful that the circumstances of
his meeting with the minister had been so deftly passed over. But with a
half idea of the superior moral responsibility under which a man in
Dokesbury's position labored, he wondered vaguely--to put it in his own
thought-words--"ef de preachah hadn't put' nigh lied." However, he was
willing to forgive this little lapse of veracity, if such it was, out of
consideration for the anxiety it spared his mother.

When Stephen Gray came in to dinner, he was no less pleased than his
wife to note the terms of friendship on which the minister received his
son. On his face was the first smile that Dokesbury had seen there, and
he awakened from his taciturnity and proffered much information as to
the fishing-places thereabout. The young minister accounted this a
distinct gain. Anything more than a frowning silence from the "little
yaller man" was gain.

The fishing that afternoon was particularly good. Catfish, chubs, and
suckers were landed in numbers sufficient to please the heart of any
amateur angler.

'Lias was happy, and the minis