This was his coat, an' so, let us
pray."

CHAPTER VII

MARGARET ADAMS

There passed out of the church, after the service, a woman leading a
boy of twelve.

He was a handsome lad with a proud and independent way about him. He
carried his head up and there was that calmness that showed good
blood. There was even a haughtiness which was pathetic, knowing as
the village did the story of his life.

The woman herself was of middle age, with neat, well-fitting clothes,
which, in the smallest arrangement of pattern and make-up, bespoke a
natural refinement.

Her's was a sweet face, with dark eyes, and in their depths lay the
shadow of resignation.

Throughout the sermon she had not taken her eyes off the old man in
the pulpit, and so interested was she, and so earnestly did she drink
in all he said, that any one noticing could tell that, to her, the
plain old man in the pulpit was more than a pastor.

She sat off by herself. Not one of them in all Cottontown would come
near her.

"Our virtue is all we po' fo'ks has got--if we lose that we ain't got
nothin' lef'," Mrs. Banks of grass-widow fame had once said, and
saying it had expressed Cottontown's opinion.

Mrs. Banks was very severe when the question of woman's purity was
up. She was the fastest woman at the loom in all Cottontown. She was
quick, with a bright, deep-seeing eye. She had been pretty--but now
at forty-five she was angular and coarse-looking, with a sharp
tongue.

The Bishop had smiled when he heard her say it, and then he looked at
Margaret Adams sitting in the corner with her boy. In saying it, Mrs.
Banks had elevated her nose as she looked in the direction where sat
the Magdalene.

The old man smiled, because he of all others knew the past history of
Mrs. Banks, the mistress of the loom.

He replied quietly: "Well, I dun'no--the best thing that can be said
of any of us in general is, that up to date, it ain't recorded that
the Almighty has appinted any one of us, on account of our supreme
purity, to act as chief stoner of the Universe. Mighty few of us,
even, has any license to throw pebbles."

Of all his congregation there was no more devoted member than
Margaret Adams--"an' as far as I kno'," the old man had often said,
"if there is an angel on earth, it is that same little woman."

When she came into church that day, the old man noticed that even the
little Hillites drew away from her. Often they would point at the
little boy