fter supper to see if it
was all right, and it was, so I kept on wearin' it, though Ma was
tellin' me all the time to take it off. Her and me had just cleaned the
parlour that day. It couldn't have happened better. And when the bell
rang, I went to the door myself."

[Sidenote: The Greetings]

"Were you surprised?"

"My land, yes! I'd thought maybe he'd come, but not without tellin' me
when, or askin' for permission, as he'd said. He come in and took off
his hat just like he was expected, and he shook hands with Ma and me. He
only said 'How do you do Mis' Starr?' to her, but to me, he says: 'I'm
glad to see you, Miss Matilda. How well you're looking!' Yes--just like
that.

"We went and set down in the parlour. I'd cleaned the lamp that day,
too--it was the same lamp Ma's took up-stairs with her now. It was on
the centre-table, by the basket of wax-flowers under the glass shade.
They was almost new then and none of 'em was broken. They looked awful
pretty.

"Ma came in the parlour, too, and she set down between him and me, and
she says: 'I've been wantin' to ask you something ever since I heard
your last sermon, three weeks ago come Sunday. I ain't been to church
since and I can't feel like I ought to go.'

"'I'm sorry,' he says, just as gentle. 'If you have any doubts that I
can clear up,' he says, 'about the Scripture----'

"''Tain't the Scripture I'm doubtin',' says Ma, 'it's you.'

"'That isn't as bad,' he says, smilin', but I could see he was scared.
You know how Ma is--especially when you ain't used to her.

[Sidenote: Discussing Baptism]

"'I'd like to ask,' says Ma, 'whether you believe that unbaptised
infants is goin' to be saved.'

"'Why, yes,' he says. 'I do,'

"'I suspicioned it,' Ma says. Oh, her voice was awful! 'May I ask you
just what grounds you have for believin' such a thing?'

"'I don't know as I could tell you just what grounds I have,' he says,
'but I certainly feel that the God I humbly try to serve is not only
just but merciful. And if there's anything on earth purer or more like a
flower than a little baby,' he says, 'I don't know what it is, whether
it's been baptised or not. I don't think God cares so much about forms
and ceremonies as he does about people's hearts,' Them's the very words
he said.

"Well," resumed Matilda, after a pause, "Ma was bent on arguin' with
him, about that, and baptisin' by sprinklin' or by immersion, and about
the lost tribes of Israel, and goodness