y's unfeeling reply. "If yo's so anxious to
be a-totin' water, jes' yo' come along outside and tote some fo' Mandy."

"I can't do no mo' carryin', Mandy," protested Hasty. "I'se hurted in
mah arm."

"What hurt yo'?"

"Tiger."

"A tiger?" exclaimed the women in unison.

"Done chawed it mos' off," he declared, solemnly. "Deacon Elverson, he
seed it, an' he says I's hurt bad."

"Deacon Elverson?" cried the spinster. "Was Deacon Elverson at the
circus?"

"He was in de lot, a-tryin' to look in, same as me," Hasty answered,
innocently.

"You'd better take Hasty into the kitchen," said Douglas to Mandy, with
a dry smile; "he's talking too much for a wounded man."

Mandy disappeared with the disgraced Hasty, advising him with fine scorn
"to get de tiger to chew off his laigs, so's he wouldn't have to walk no
mo'."

The women gazed at each other with lips closed tightly. Elverson's
behaviour was beyond their power of expression. Miss Perkins turned
to the pastor, as though he were somehow to blame for the deacon's
backsliding, but before she could find words to argue the point, the
timid little deacon appeared in the doorway, utterly unconscious of the
hostile reception that Hasty had prepared for him. He glanced nervously
from one set face to the other, then coughed behind his hat.

"We're all very much interested in the circus," said Douglas. "Can't you
tell us about it?"

"I just went into the lot to look for my son," stammered the deacon. "I
feared Peter had strayed."

"Why, deacon," said Mrs. Willoughby. "I just stopped by your house and
saw Mrs. Elverson putting Peter to bed."

The deacon was saved from further embarrassment by an exclamation from
Julia, who had stayed at the window. "Oh, look; something has happened!"
she cried. "There's a crowd. They are coming this way."

Douglas crossed quickly to Julia's side, and saw an excited mob
collecting before the entrance to the main tent. He had time to discover
no more before Mandy burst in at the door, panting with excitement and
rolling her large, white-rimmed eyeballs.

"Mars John, a little circus girl done fall off her hoss!" she cried.
"Dr. Hartley say can dey bring her in heah?"

"Of course," said Douglas, hurrying outside.

There were horrified exclamations from the women, who were aghast at the
idea of a circus rider in the parsonage. In their helpless indignation,
they turned upon the little deacon, feeling intuitively that he was
enjoying t