"The church used to be God's house, in my day," said the old lady, with
a concerned face, looking up from her knitting, while her fingers went
on with their work as busily as ever.

"They don't mean it for anything else, grandmother," said Madge. "It's
all for the sake of the school."

"Maybe they think so," the old lady answered.

"What else, mother? what else should it be?"

But this she did not answer.

"What's Mr. Dillwyn got to do with it?" she asked presently.

"He's going to help," said Madge. "It's nothing but kindness. He
supposes it is something good to do, and he says he'd like to be
useful."

"He hain't no idea how," said Mrs. Armadale, "Poor creatur'! You can
tell him, it ain't the Lord's work he's doin'."

"But we cannot tell him that, mother," said Lois.

"If the people want to have this celebration,--and they will,--hadn't
we better make it a good one? Is it really a bad thing?"

"The devil's ways never help no one to heaven, child, not if they go
singin' hymns all the way."

"But, mother!" cried Madge. "Mr. Dillwyn ain't a Christian, maybe, but
he ain't as bad as that."

"I didn't mean Mr. Dillwyn, dear, nor no one else. I meant theatre
work."

"_Santa Claus_, mother?"

"It's actin', ain't it?"

The girls looked at each other.

"There's very little of anything like acting about it," Lois said.

"'Make straight paths for your feet'!" said Mrs. Armadale, rising to go
to bed. "'Make straight paths for your feet,' children. Straight ways
is the shortest too. If the chil'en that don't love their teachers
wants to go to the yellow church, let 'em go. I'd rather have the Lord
in a little school, than Santa Claus in a big one."

She was leaving the room, but the girls stayed her and begged to know
what they should do in the matter of the lists they were engaged to
prepare for Mr. Dillwyn.

"You must do what you think best," she said. "Only don't be mixed up
with it all any more than you can help, Lois."

Why did the name of one child come to her lips and not the other? Did
the old lady's affection, or natural acuteness, discern that Mr.
Dillwyn was _not_ drawn to Shampuashuh by any particular admiration of
his friend Mrs. Barclay? Had she some of that preternatural intuition,
plain old country woman though she was, which makes a woman see the
invisible and hear the inaudible? which serves as one of the natural
means of defence granted to the weaker creatures. I do not know; I do
no