d a boiled collar?"

"No, he wasn't. And he needn't come neither. I could have had him
long ago when he was fresh. I don't want any second-hand goods,
believe ME. As for Horace Baxter, he was in financial difficulties a
year ago last summer, and he prayed to the Lord for help; and when his
wife died and he got her life insurance he said he believed it was the
answer to his prayer. Wasn't that like a man?"

"Have you really proof that he said that, Cornelia?"

"I have the Methodist minister's word for it--if you call THAT proof.
Robert Baxter told me the same thing too, but I admit THAT isn't
evidence. Robert Baxter isn't often known to tell the truth."

"Come, come, Cornelia, I think he generally tells the truth, but he
changes his opinion so often it sometimes sounds as if he didn't."

"It sounds like it mighty often, believe ME. But trust one man to
excuse another. I have no use for Robert Baxter. He turned Methodist
just because the Presbyterian choir happened to be singing 'Behold the
bridegroom cometh' for a collection piece when him and Margaret walked
up the aisle the Sunday after they were married. Served him right for
being late! He always insisted the choir did it on purpose to insult
him, as if he was of that much importance. But that family always
thought they were much bigger potatoes than they really were. His
brother Eliphalet imagined the devil was always at his elbow--but _I_
never believed the devil wasted that much time on him."

"I--don't--know," said Captain Jim thoughtfully. "Eliphalet Baxter
lived too much alone--hadn't even a cat or dog to keep him human. When
a man is alone he's mighty apt to be with the devil--if he ain't with
God. He has to choose which company he'll keep, I reckon. If the
devil always was at Life Baxter's elbow it must have been because Life
liked to have him there."

"Man-like," said Miss Cornelia, and subsided into silence over a
complicated arrangement of tucks until Captain Jim deliberately stirred
her up again by remarking in a casual way:

"I was up to the Methodist church last Sunday morning."

"You'd better have been home reading your Bible," was Miss Cornelia's
retort.

"Come, now, Cornelia, _I_ can't see any harm in going to the Methodist
church when there's no preaching in your own. I've been a Presbyterian
for seventy-six years, and it isn't likely my theology will hoist
anchor at this late day."

"It's setting a bad example," said M