rch, and here
he was expected to kneel down with the others. Whaley and his wife knelt
side by side, the worn bottoms of their coarse shoes standing steadily,
their heels upward. As John knelt he felt the uneven planks of the floor
press into his knees unpleasantly, and he moved them for a more
comfortable spot. He had an impulse to laugh over his own predicament,
but checked it, for, glancing to his right, he saw Tilly bent over her
crude split-bottom chair like a wilted human flower. She looked so weary
and so utterly helpless, and yet so brave and patient. As he feasted on
her sweet profile he wondered if she, like himself, were thinking of
other things than the ceremony at hand. He could not decide. Surely, he
thought, she could not be so silly, with that broad brow and those
discerning eyes, as to believe that there was an invisible being away
off somewhere who was now listening to what Cavanaugh was saying in his
faltering, singsong tone. Somehow he expected absolute truthfulness to
be found in the girl. As for the others, they knew what they claimed was
untrue. They--even Cavanaugh--were hypocrites, and in their secret souls
they knew it.

Cavanaugh's prayer was labored--it did not flow as from the tongue of a
man who loves the sound of his own mouthing--and it was soon ended.
Whaley's smug omission of any comment on it showed the farmer's estimate
of its value or lack of value in any religious campaign.

Now that they were all standing, John found himself near Tilly. He felt
that he was expected to say something, for she had raised a dubious
glance to his face, but his tongue was tied. How could he speak there
under such circumstances when he had never met a girl of her sort on any
terms of social equality? He grew hot from head to foot. In kneeling his
trousers had caught a white thread from the floor. He saw it and bent to
remove it. It was too delicate for his thick, brick-worn fingers to
grasp, and he stood awkwardly trying, now to lift it, again to brush it
off. He failed, and then he forgot and swore softly. Tilly may not have
heard the oath, but something excited her mirth and she smiled--smiled
straight into his eyes. He smiled in return, for he had never seen such
a smile as hers before. In rippling streams of delight it seemed to go
through his whole being. He saw her pretty hand start down toward the
thread and then check itself as she noticed her mother looking at her.
It was as if she had started t