goin' to holler their lungs loose at prayer meetin'.
He, he! You ain't turned Come-Outer, have you, Mr. Ellery? You've headed
right for the chapel."

Ellery's reply was hurried and a bit confused. He said good night and
went on.

"Laviny," whispered the shocked Kyan, "do you think that was
a--er--polite thing to say to a parson? That about his turnin'
Come-Outer? He didn't make much answer, seemed to me. You don't think he
was mad, do ye?"

"I don't care if he was," snorted Miss Pepper. "He could tell a body
where he was goin' then. Nobody can snub me, minister or not. I think
he's kind of stuck-up, if you want to know, and if he is, he'll get took
down in a hurry. Come along, don't stand there with your mouth open like
a flytrap. I'd like to know what he was up to. I've a precious good mind
to follow him; would if 'twa'n't so much trouble."

She didn't. Yet, if she had, she would have deemed the trouble worth
while. For John Ellery stumbled on through the mist till he reached the
"Corners" where the store was located and the roads forked. There, he
turned to the right, into the way called locally "Hammond's Turn-off."
A short distance down the "Turn-off" stood a small, brown-shingled
building, its windows alight. Opposite its door, on the other side of
the road, grew a spreading hornbeam tree surrounded by a cluster of
swamp blackberry bushes. In the black shadow of the hornbeam Mr. Ellery
stood still. He was debating in his mind a question: should he or should
he not enter that building?

As he stood there, groups of people emerged from the fog and darkness
and passed in at the door. Some of them he had seen during his fortnight
in Trumet. Others were strangers to him. A lantern danced and wabbled up
the "Turn-off" from the direction of the bay shore and the packet wharf.
It drew near, and he saw that it was carried by an old man with long
white hair and chin beard, who walked with a slight limp. Beside him was
a thin woman wearing a black poke bonnet and a shawl. In the rear of
the pair came another woman, a young woman, judging by the way she was
dressed and her lithe, vigorous step. The trio halted on the platform of
the building. The old man blew out the lantern. Then he threw the door
open and a stream of yellow light poured over the group.

The young woman was Grace Van Horne. The minister recognized her at
once. Undoubtedly, the old man with the limp was her guardian, Captain
Eben Hammond, who, by commo