closed with his offer to take her to Sunday-school, and now she hurried
away to get ready, leaving Mrs. Tanner to make her clerical arrangements
without aid.

The minister, meantime, looked after her doubtfully. Perhaps, after all,
it would have been a good move to have preached. He might have impressed
that difficult young woman better that way than any other, seeing she
posed as being so interested in religious matters. He turned to Mrs.
Tanner and began to ask questions about the feasibility of a church
service. The word "collection" sounded good to him. He was not averse to
replenishing his somewhat depleted treasury if it could be done so
easily as that.

Meantime Margaret, up in her room, was wondering again how such a man as
Mr. West ever got into the Christian ministry.

West was still endeavoring to impress the Tanners with the importance of
his late charge in the East as Margaret came down-stairs. His pompous
tones, raised to favor the deafness that he took for granted in Mr.
Tanner, easily reached her ears.

"I couldn't, of course, think of doing it every Sunday, you understand.
It wouldn't be fair to myself nor my work which I have just left; but,
of course, if there were sufficient inducement I might consent to preach
some Sunday before I leave."

Mrs. Tanner's little satisfied cluck was quite audible as the girl
closed the front door and went out to the waiting Bud.

The Sunday-school was a desolate affair, presided over by an elderly and
very illiterate man, who nursed his elbows and rubbed his chin
meditatively between the slow questions which he read out of the
lesson-leaf. The woman who usually taught the children was called away
to nurse a sick neighbor, and the children were huddled together in a
restless group. The singing was poor, and the whole of the exercises
dreary, including the prayer. The few women present sat and stared in a
kind of awe at the visitor, half belligerently, as if she were an
intruder. Bud lingered outside the door and finally disappeared
altogether, reappearing when the last hymn was sung. Altogether the new
teacher felt exceedingly homesick as she wended her way back to the
Tanners' beside Bud.

"What do you do with yourself on Sunday afternoons, Bud?" she asked, as
soon as they were out of hearing of the rest of the group.

The boy turned wondering eyes toward her. "Do?" he repeated, puzzled.
"Why, we pass the time away, like 'most any day. There ain't much
diffe