u were born and brought up in, Abby, or not,
tonight? There's the first bell."

"I'm not going to any church." said Abby. "I went this morning. I'm
going home to my baby."

"Your father and mother," said Mrs Murchison, "can go twice a day, and
be none the worse for it. By the way, Father, did you know old Mrs Parr
was dead? Died this morning at four o'clock. They telephoned for Dr
Drummond, and I think they had little to do, for he had been up with her
half the night already, Mrs Forsyth told me."

"Did he go?" asked Mr Murchison.

"He did not, for the very good reason that he knew nothing about it. Mrs
Forsyth answered the telephone, and told them he hadn't been two hours
in his bed, and she wouldn't get him out again for an unconscious
deathbed, and him with bronchitis on him and two sermons to preach
today."

"I'll warrant Mrs Forsyth caught it in the morning," said John
Murchison.

"That she did. The doctor was as cross as two sticks that she hadn't had
him out to answer the phone. 'I just spoke up,' she said, 'and told him
I didn't see how he was going to do any good to the pour soul over a
telephone wire.' 'It isn't that,' he said, 'but I might have put them
on to Peter Fratch for the funeral. We've never had an undertaker in the
church before,' he said; 'he's just come, and he ought to be supported.
Now I expect it's too late, they'll have gone to Liscombe.' He rang them
up right away, but they had."

"Dr Drummond can't stand Liscombe," said Alec, as they all laughed a
little at the Doctor's foible, all except Advena, who laughed a
great deal. She laughed wildly, then weakly. "I wouldn't--think it a
pleasure--to be buried by Liscombe myself!" she cried hysterically, and
then laughed again until the tears ran down her face, and she lay back
in her chair and moaned, still laughing.

Mr and Mrs Murchison, Alec, Stella, and Advena made up the family party;
Oliver, for reasons of his own, would attend the River Avenue Methodist
Church that evening. They slipped out presently into a crisp white
winter night. The snow was banked on both sides of the street. Spreading
garden fir trees huddled together weighted down with it; ragged icicles
hung from the eaves or lay in long broken fingers on the trodden paths.
The snow snapped and tore under their feet; there was a glorious moon
that observed every tattered weed sticking up through the whiteness, and
etched it with its shadow. The town lay under the moon almost