tle man with the lark's voice and the gentle
heart."

When Jennie, hearing the news, hurried home from the other end of town,
really frightened for the first time in her married life, the young
minister was gone and Frank was sitting out on the back porch staring
at nothing.

"Frank," Jennie began breathlessly, "is he gone?"

"Yes--he's gone."

"Frank--you--I hope you didn't get mad at him. He's different--not
like other ministers--and he's really a boy in some things."

"Jennie," and Frank reassured her, "you're darn right that boy is
different. He's so darn different from all the rest of them I've met
that I'm going to church next Sunday. James D. and Dudley and others
of that stripe will probably die of shock but just you press your best
dress, Jennie, for we're surely going. Why that man's no minister.
Don't slander him. He's a human being."

Jennie's eyes grew a bit misty, for with no babies to love, Frank was
her all in all and her one great sorrow was that so few people knew the
real Frank.

"And come to think of it, Jennie," Frank mused, "you weren't so far
wrong in thinking that it was a Christian Scientist who was coming. I
guess that's just about what he is--a Christian scientist."

CHAPTER XII

THE PATH OF TRUE LOVE

Nanny was cross. She had lost her bubbling merriment and her family
wondered.

"Sis, I believe you will be an old maid, all right. I'm beginning to
see the signs already," her brother lazily told her one day when to
some innocent remark of his she made a snapping answer.

Mr. Ainslee laughed.

"You aren't reading the signs correctly, Son," he said. "Nan's
crossness can be interpreted another way. It's my private opinion that
Nanny's in love."

Whereupon Mr. Ainslee dodged for he fully expected that Nanny would
hurl a pillow his way. But Nanny didn't. She turned a little white,
caught her breath a little hurriedly and then stood looking quietly at
the two men. When she left the room her father was a little worried
and her brother a little uncomfortable.

"I guess we'd better let up on the teasing, Dad," the boy suggested in
the serious, soft voice that had been his mother's, the mother who had
never teased.

"I wouldn't hurt Nanny for the world," penitently murmured Mr. Ainslee.
"I had no idea--oh, Son," he suddenly groaned, "I wish your mother was
here to look after us all."

And the great diplomat who was known and welcomed at the courts of
great na