ck. He was a new minister, and
very particular. Mary shook hands with him, and then seated herself on
the step.

"Won't you set down here?" she asked. "I've got sickness, an' I can't
have talkin' any nearer. I'm glad it's a warm day."

The minister looked at the step, and then at Mary. He felt as if his
dignity had been mildly assaulted, and he preferred to stand.

"I should like to offer prayer for the young man," he said. "I had hoped
to see him."

Mary smiled at him in that impersonal way of hers.

"I don't let anybody see him," said she. "I guess we shall all have to
pray by ourselves."

The minister was somewhat nettled. He was young enough to feel the
slight to his official position; and moreover, there were things which
his rigid young wife, primed by the wonder of the town, had enjoined
upon him to say. He flushed to the roots of his smooth brown hair.

"I suppose you know," said he, "that you're taking a very peculiar
stand."

Mary turned her head, to listen. She thought she heard her patient
breathing, and her mind was with him.

"You seem," said the minister, "to have taken in a man who has no claim
on you, instead of letting him stay with his people. If you are going to
marry him, let me advise you to do it now, and not wait for him to get
well. The opinion of the world is, in a measure, to be
respected,--though only in a measure."

Mary had risen to go in, but now she turned upon him.

"Married!" she repeated; and then again, in a hushed voice,--"married!"

"Yes," replied the minister testily, standing by his guns, "married."

Mary looked at him a moment, and then again she moved away. She glanced
round at him, as she entered the door, and said very gently, "I guess
you better go now. Good-day."

She closed the door, and the minister heard her bolt it. He told his
wife briefly, on reaching home, that there wasn't much chance to talk
with Mary, and perhaps the less there was said about it the better.

But as Mary sat down by her patient's bed, her face settled into
sadness, because she was thinking about the world. It had not,
heretofore, been one of her recognized planets; now that it had swung
her way, she marveled at it.

The very next night, while she was eating her supper in the kitchen, the
door opened, and Mattie walked in. Mattie had been washing late that
afternoon. She always washed at odd times, and often in dull weather
her undried clothes hung for days upon the line. She was