let his wife put his best shirt
on him. He said his second best was plenty good to be buried in. That's
another fact."

"I can't stand much more of this," wailed Felicity.

"See here, Miss Bowen, you really oughtn't to talk like that about
people," expostulated Peter in a low tone, goaded thereto, despite his
awe of Peg, by Felicity's anguish.

"Bless you, boy," said Peg good-humouredly, "the only difference between
me and other folks is that I say these things out loud and they just
think them. If I told yez all the things I know about the people in this
congregation you'd be amazed. Have a peppermint?"

To our horror Peg produced a handful of peppermint lozenges from the
pocket of her skirt and offered us one each. We did not dare refuse but
we each held our lozenge very gingerly in our hands.

"Eat them," commanded Peg rather fiercely.

"Mother doesn't allow us to eat candy in church," faltered Felicity.

"Well, I've seen just as fine ladies as your ma give their children
lozenges in church," said Peg loftily. She put a peppermint in her own
mouth and sucked it with gusto. We were relieved, for she did not talk
during the process; but our relief was of short duration. A bevy of
three very smartly dressed young ladies, sweeping past our pew, started
Peg off again.

"Yez needn't be so stuck up," she said, loudly and derisively. "Yez was
all of yez rocked in a flour barrel. And there's old Henry Frewen, still
above ground. I called my parrot after him because their noses were
exactly alike. Look at Caroline Marr, will yez? That's a woman who'd
like pretty well to get married, And there's Alexander Marr. He's a real
Christian, anyhow, and so's his dog. I can always size up what a man's
religion amounts to by the kind of dog he keeps. Alexander Marr is a
good man."

It was a relief to hear Peg speak well of somebody; but that was the
only exception she made.

"Look at Dave Fraser strutting in," she went on. "That man has thanked
God so often that he isn't like other people that it's come to be true.
He isn't! And there's Susan Frewen. She's jealous of everybody. She's
even jealous of Old Man Rogers because he's buried in the best spot in
the graveyard. Seth Erskine has the same look he was born with. They say
the Lord made everybody but I believe the devil made all the Erskines."

"She's getting worse all the time. What WILL she say next?" whispered
poor Felicity.

But her martyrdom was over at last. The m