hought it wisest that we should go after tea; and another
cross-street baker, and another pair of rolls, and another tap at the
Croton, provided that repast for us. Then I told Fausta of the
respectable boarding-house, and that she must go there. She did not say
no. But she did say she would rather not spend the evening there. "There
must be some place open for us," said she. "There! there is a
church-bell! The church is always home. Let us come there."

So to "evening meeting" we went, startling the sexton by arriving an
hour early. If there were any who wondered what was the use of that
Wednesday-evening service, we did not. In a dark gallery pew we sat, she
at one end, I at the other; and, if the whole truth be told, each of us
fell asleep at once, and slept till the heavy organ tones taught us that
the service had begun. A hundred or more people had straggled in then,
and the preacher, good soul, he took for his text, "Doth not God care
for the ravens?" I cannot describe the ineffable feeling of home that
came over me in that dark pew of that old church. I had never been in so
large a church before. I had never heard so heavy an organ before.
Perhaps I had heard better preaching, but never any that came to my
occasions more. But it was none of these things which moved me. It was
the fact that we were just where we had a right to be. No impudent
waiter could ask us why we were sitting there, nor any petulant
policeman propose that we should push on. It was God's house, and,
because his, it was his children's.

All this feeling of repose grew upon me, and, as it proved, upon Fausta
also. For when the service was ended, and I ventured to ask her whether
she also had this sense of home and rest, she assented so eagerly, that
I proposed, though with hesitation, a notion which had crossed me, that
I should leave her there.

"I cannot think," I said, "of any possible harm that could come to you
before morning."

"Do you know, I had thought of that very same thing, but I did not dare
tell you," she said.

Was not I glad that she had considered me her keeper! But I only said,
"At the 'respectable boarding-house' you might be annoyed by questions."

"And no one will speak to me here. I know that from Goody Two-Shoes."

"I will be here," said I, "at sunrise in the morning." And so I bade her
good by, insisting on leaving in the pew my own great-coat. I knew she
might need it before morning. I walked out as the sexton cl