uff?"

And, in consequence, Mrs. Brenton took her prayers into bed with her,
that night. Some of them, even, lasted till the dawn.

This was when Scott was only four. By the time he was fourteen, he took
himself more seriously. He still played "Grandpa Wheeler" in
imagination; but he no longer called it play, but plans. Already, he
was looking forward to the hour when, in creaking Sunday shoes and
shiny Sunday broadcloth, he should mount the stairs of the
old-fashioned pulpit in the village church, gather the hearts of the
waiting congregation within the welcoming and graceful gesture which
would prelude his opening prayer, and then scourge those same hearts
with the lashing truths which lead unto regeneration. He saw himself
distinctly in this role, more distinctly, even, than in the blurry
mirror before which he performed his morning toilet. It was no especial
wonder that he did so. Ever since he had been old enough to pay heed to
anything, his mother had been holding the picture up before his eyes.

Catie, however, refused to be impressed by the picture.

"What makes you want to be a minister?" she asked him. "I'd rather you
kept a store. There's lots more money in it."

"I don't see what difference it is going to make to you?" Scott
answered rather cavalierly.

Catie's reply was matter-of-fact, regardless of the sentimental nature
of its substance.

"Don't be stupid, Scott. Of course, we shall be married, when we get
grown up, and then you'll have me to support."

It was the first time she had announced this rather radical plan of
hers, so it was no especial wonder that, for the moment, it took
Scott's breath away. Not that he objected especially, however. It was
only the novelty of the idea that staggered him. To his
slowly-developing masculine mind, it never had occurred that he and
Catie could not go on for ever, just chums and playmates and, now and
then, lusty foes, without complicating their relations by more formal,
final ties. He rallied swiftly, however.

"Well, you'll have to marry a minister, then," he told her sturdily.

Her nose wrinkled in disgust.

"And wear shabby clothes and a bad bonnet, like Mrs. Platt, and have to
go to all the funerals in town! How horrid! Oh, Scott, do be some other
kind of a man. A minister's wife can't dance anything but the Virginia
reel, nor play anything more than muggins. Why can't you be a dentist,
if you won't keep a store?"

For the once, Scott showed hi