the congregation for an hour! They were glad to get through the baize
doors and let them swing together behind them.

Neale clapped his cap on his head, hiding a part of the ruin, but Deacon
Abel came out and attacked him hotly:

"What do you mean by such disgraceful actions, boy?" he asked, with
quivering voice. "I don't know who you are--you are a stranger to me;
but I warn you never to come here and play such jokes again----"

"It isn't a joke, Mr. Abel!" cried Agnes.

"What do you call it, then? Isn't that one of them new-fangled wigs I
read folks in the city wear to dances and other affairs? What's he got
it on for?"

"It isn't a wig," Agnes said, while Neale clutched wildly at his hair.

"Don't tell me it's his own hair!" almost shouted the old gentleman.

"What's the matter with my hair?" demanded the puzzled boy.

"Doesn't he know? Do you mean to say he doesn't know what his head looks
like?" cried the amazed deacon. "Come! come into this room, boy, and
look at your hair."

There was the ushers' dressing-room at one end of the vestibule; he led
Neale in by the arm. In the small mirror on the wall the boy got a
fairly accurate picture of his hirsute adornment.

Without a word--after his first gasp of amazement--Neale turned and
walked out of the room, and out of the church. It was a hot Sunday and
the walks were bathed in sunshine. Neale involuntarily took the path
across the Parade in the direction of the old Corner House.

At this hour--in the middle of sermon time--there was scarcely anybody
in sight. Milton observed Sunday most particularly--especially in this
better quarter of the town.

Neale had gone some way before he realized that Agnes was just beside
him. He looked around at her and now his face was very pale.

"What did you come for?" he asked her, ungraciously enough.

"I'm so sorry, Neale," the girl whispered, drawing nearer to his elbow.

The boy stared for a moment, and then exclaimed: "Why, Aggie! you're a
good little sport, all right."

Aggie blushed vividly, but she hastened to say: "Why did you do it,
Neale?"

"I--I can't tell you," replied the boy, in some confusion. "Only I got
to change the color of my hair."

"But, mercy! you needn't have changed it to so many colors all at once!"
cried she.

"Huh! do you think--like that old man--that I did it a-purpose?"

"But you _did_ dye it!"

"I tried to."

"That was the stuff you were buying yesterday in the drugstore?" s