I shall
ask brother Philip and sister Marjory to sing Number 549, 'Oh, for a
Closer Walk with God.'"

He smiled benignly upon us. We were accustomed to his way, and we knew
everybody in that little congregation. And yet, somehow, a flutter went
through the company when we stood up together, as if everybody knew our
thoughts. We had stood side by side on Sabbath mornings and had sung
from the same book since childhood, with never a thought of
embarrassment. It dawned on Springvale that day as a revelation what
Marjie meant to me. All the world, including our town, loves a lover,
and it was suddenly clear to the town that the tall, broad-shouldered
young man who looked down at the sweet-browed little girl-woman beside
him as he looked at nobody else, whose hand touched hers as they turned
the leaves, and who led her by the arm ever so gently down the steps
from the choir seats, was reading for himself

That old fair story
Set round in glory
Wherever life is found.

And Marjie, in spotless white, with her broad-brimmed hat set back from
her curl-shaded forehead, the tinted lights from the memorial window
which Amos Judson had placed there for his wife, falling like an aureole
about her, who could keep from loving her?

"Her an' Phil Baronet's jist made fur one another," Cam Gentry declared
to a bunch of town gossips the next day.

"Now'd ye ever see a finer-lookin' couple?" broke in Grandpa Mead. "An'
the way they sung that hymn yesterday--well, I just hope they'll repeat
it over my remains." And Grandpa began to sing softly in his quavering
voice:

Oh, for a closer walk with God,
A cam and heavenli frame,
A light toe shine upon tha road
That leads me toe tha Lamb.

Everybody agreed with Cam except Judson. He was very cross with O'mie
that morning. O'mie was clerk and manager for him now, as Judson himself
had been for Irving Whately. He rubbed his hands and joined the group,
smiling a trifle scornfully.

"Seems to me you're all gossiping pretty freely this morning. The young
man may be pretty well fixed some day. But he's young, he's young. Mrs.
Whately's my partner, and I know their affairs very well, very well.
She'll provide her daughter with a man, not a mere boy."

"Well, he was man enough to keep this here town from burnin' up, an' no
tellin' how many bloodsheds," Grandpa Mead piped in.

"He was man enough to find O'mie and save his life," Cam protested.

"Well, we'll leave it to Dr. H