ned the gate a few minutes later and walked slowly toward
the barn for his horse, he looked pale and unnerved. It is uncommonly
startling, first to see yourself in another man's scornful eyes, and
then, clearly, in your own.

Two days later he came again, and this time it was decreed that he
should find Parson Carll tying his piebald mare at the post.

Clara Belle's quick eye had observed the minister as he alighted from
his buggy, and, warning her mother, she hastily smoothed the bedclothes,
arranged the medicine bottles, and swept the hearth.

"Oh! Don't let him in!" wailed Mrs. Simpson, all of a flutter at the
prospect of such a visitor. "Oh, dear! They must think over to the
village that I'm dreadful sick, or the minister wouldn't never think
of callin'! Don't let him in, Clara Belle! I'm afraid he will say hard
words to me, or pray to me; and I ain't never been prayed to since I was
a child! Is his wife with him?"

"No; he's alone; but father's just drove up and is hitching at the shed
door."

"That's worse than all!" and Mrs. Simpson raised herself feebly on her
pillows and clasped her hands in despair. "You mustn't let them two
meet, Clara Belle, and you must send Mr. Carll away; your father
wouldn't have a minister in the house, nor speak to one, for a thousand
dollars!"

"Be quiet, mother! Lie down! It'll be all right! You'll only fret
yourself into a spell! The minister's just a good man; he won't say
anything to frighten you. Father's talking with him real pleasant, and
pointing the way to the front door."

The parson knocked and was admitted by the excited Clara Belle, who
ushered him tremblingly into the sickroom, and then betook herself to
the kitchen with the children, as he gently requested her.

Abner Simpson, left alone in the shed, fumbled in his vest pocket and
took out an envelope which held a sheet of paper and a tiny packet
wrapped in tissue paper. The letter had been read once before and ran as
follows:

Dear Mr. Simpson:

This is a secret letter. I heard that the Acreville people weren't nice
to Mrs. Simpson because she didn't have any wedding ring like all the
others.

I know you've always been poor, dear Mr. Simpson, and troubled with a
large family like ours at the farm; but you really ought to have given
Mrs. Simpson a ring when you were married to her, right at the very
first; for then it would have been over and done with, as they are solid
gold and last forever. And probabl