gation had passed out, Dokesbury shook 'Lias.
The boy woke, partially sobered, and his face fell before the preacher's
eyes.

"Come, my boy, let's go home." Arm in arm they went out into the street,
where a number of scoffers had gathered to have a laugh at the abashed
boy; but Harold Dokesbury's strong arm steadied his steps, and something
in his face checked the crowd's hilarity. Silently they cleared the way,
and the two passed among them and went home.

The minister saw clearly the things which he had to combat in his
community, and through this one victim he determined to fight the
general evil. The people with whom he had to deal were children who must
be led by the hand. The boy lying in drunken sleep upon his bed was no
worse than the rest of them. He was an epitome of the evil, as his
parents were of the sorrows, of the place.

He could not talk to Elias. He could not lecture him. He would only be
dashing his words against the accumulated evil of years of bondage as
the ripples of a summer sea beat against a stone wall. It was not the
wickedness of this boy he was fighting or even the wrong-doing of Mt.
Hope. It was the aggregation of the evils of the fathers, the
grandfathers, the masters and mistresses of these people. Against this
what could talk avail?

The boy slept on, and the afternoon passed heavily away. Aunt Caroline
was finding solace in her pipe, and Stephen Gray sulked in moody silence
beside the hearth. Neither of them joined their guest at evening
service.

He went, however. It was hard to face those people again after the
events of the morning. He could feel them covertly nudging each other
and grinning as he went up to the pulpit. He chided himself for the
momentary annoyance it caused him. Were they not like so many naughty,
irresponsible children?

The service passed without unpleasantness, save that he went home with
an annoyingly vivid impression of a yellow girl with red ribbons on her
hat, who pretended to be impressed by his sermon and made eyes at him
from behind her handkerchief.

On the way to his room that night, as he passed Stephen Gray, the old
man whispered huskily, "It's de fus' time 'Lias evah done dat."

It was the only word he had spoken since morning.

A sound sleep refreshed Dokesbury, and restored the tone to his
overtaxed nerves. When he came out in the morning, Elias was already in
the kitchen. He too had slept off his indisposition, but it had been
succeeded