said. "I'll see what can be done."

Margaret looked up. "Oh, I'm so glad, so glad!"

He looked reverently into her eyes, all the manhood in him stirred to
higher, better things. Then, suddenly, as they stood together, a sound
smote their ears as from another world.

"Um! Ah!--"

The minister stood within the doorway, barred by Bud in scowling
defiance, and guarded by Cap, who gave an answering growl.

Gardley and Margaret looked at each other and smiled, then turned and
walked slowly down to where the pony stood. They did not wish to talk
here in that alien presence. Indeed, it seemed that more words were not
needed--they would be a desecration.

So he rode away into the sunset once more with just another look and a
hand-clasp, and she turned, strangely happy at heart, to go back to her
dull surroundings and her uncongenial company.

"Come, William, let's have a praise service," she said, brightly,
pausing at the doorway, but ignoring the scowling minister.

"A praise service! What's a praise service?" asked the wondering Bud,
shoving over to let her sit down beside him.

She sat with her back to West, and Cap came and lay at her feet with the
white of one eye on the minister and a growl ready to gleam between his
teeth any minute. There was just no way for the minister to get out
unless he jumped over them or went out the back door; but the people in
the doorway had the advantage of not having to look at him, and he
couldn't very well dominate the conversation standing so behind them.

"Why, a praise service is a service of song and gladness, of course. You
sing, don't you? Of course. Well, what shall we sing? Do you know this?"
And she broke softly into song:

"When peace like a river attendeth my way;
When sorrows like sea-billows roll;
Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul."

Bud did not know the song, but he did not intend to be balked with the
minister standing right behind him, ready, no doubt, to jump in and take
the precedence; so he growled away at a note in the bass, turning it
over and over and trying to make it fit, like a dog gnawing at a bare
bone; but he managed to keep time and make it sound a little like
singing.

The dusk was falling fast as they finished the last verse, Margaret
singing the words clear and distinct, Bud growling unintelligibly and
snatching at words he had never heard before. Once more Margaret sang:

"A