Half past eight. In the vestry of the Regular church John Ellery was
conducting his prayer meeting. The attendance was as large as usual.
Three seats, however, were vacant, and along the settees people were
wondering where Captain Elkanah Daniels and his daughter might be. They
had not missed a service for many a day. And where was Keziah Coffin?

At the Come-Outer chapel the testifying and singing were in full blast.
But Ezekiel Bassett was leading, for Captain Eben Hammond had not
made his appearance. Neither had Grace Van Horne, for that matter, but
Captain Eben's absence was the most astonishing.

"Somethin's the matter," whispered Josiah Badger to his right-hand
neighbor. "Somethin's wrong d-d-d-down to the tavern, sartin' sure.
I'm goin' down there just soon's meetin's over and f-f-f-find out.
Eben wouldn't no more miss leadin' his meetin' from choice than I'd go
without a meal's v-v-vi-vittles. Somethin's happened and I'm goin' to
know what 'tis. You'll go along with me, won't ye, Lot?"

The answer was an affirmative. In fact, almost every worshiper in that
chapel had determined to visit the Hammond tavern as soon as the service
was at an end.

In the Regular parsonage Keziah sat alone by the sitting-room table.
Prayer meeting and supper she had forgotten entirely. The minister
had not come home for his evening meal, and food was furthest from the
housekeeper's thoughts. What should she do? What ought she to do? How
could she avert the disaster so certain to overwhelm those two young
people the moment their secret became known?

It was in vain that she tried to encourage herself with the hope that
Kyan had exaggerated--that the meetings in the grove had not been as
frequent as he said they were, or that they had been merely casual.
She knew better. She had seen the pair together and the look in John
Ellery's eyes. No, the mischief was done, they loved each other; or, at
least, he loved her. There was the great trouble.

Keziah, in spite of her worldly common sense, was an idealist at heart.
Love matches she believed in thoroughly. If the man had not been a
Regular minister, or if he had been a minister in any other town than
narrow, gossiping, squabbling Trumet, where families were divided on
"religious" grounds, neighbors did not speak because their creeds were
different, and even after death were buried in cemeteries three miles
apart; if the girl had been other than the ward of bigoted old Eben
Hammo