by Anne, standing idly behind the stove, and it brought to his
eyes a sudden rush of tears--his little girl was dead; the little
girl who had loved him. He remembered how she had clung to him that
night he came to say good-bye, and begged him to come back, and now,
when he came back, there was only the muslin hat and the sleigh and
the plaid dress to tell him that he was too late!

Bud retraced his steps sadly to the road and made his way to the
schoolhouse, which lay straight on his road home. In his anxiety for
Libby Anne, he forgot about it being the hour for service. The
schoolyard was blown clean and bare. In the woodpile he noticed
"shinney-sticks" where their owners had put them for safe-keeping--he
knew all the "hidie-holes," though it was years and years since he
had played "shinney" here. His boyhood seemed separated from him by a
wide gulf. Since leaving home he had been to church but seldom, for
Bud made the discovery that many another young man makes, that the
people who go to church and young people's meetings are not always as
friendly as the crowd who frequent the pool-rooms and bars. Bud had
been hungry for companionship, and he had found it, but in places
that did not benefit him morally.

The minister's cutter, in front of the shed, called to his
remembrance the fact that this was the hour for service, which no
doubt was going on now. "It's a wonder they still keep it up," he
thought, rather contemptuously.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to go into the
porch--he, would hear what was going on, anyway, and perhaps he could
see if Mrs. Cavers were there. Suddenly some one began to sing--the
voice was strange, and yet familiar, like something had heard long,
long, ago. When he realized that it was Mrs. Cavers he was listening
to, a sudden impulse seized him to rush in. Libby Anne must be there
beside her mother--she was always beside her.

"was it for crimes that I have done,
He groaned upon the tree?"

Mrs. Cavers was singing alone, it seemed, in her sweet thin voice.

"Oh, no," Bud said to himself, "I guess it was not for any crimes she
ever did."

The day had grown darker and colder, biting wind began to whirl hard
little around the porch. Mrs. Cavers sang on:

"Well may the sun in darkness hide,
And shut his glories in.
When Christ, the mightly Saviour died
For man, the creatures sin."

Then he heard Mr. Burrell say, quite distinctly: "Ye that do