against a rock!"

[Illustration]

III

Letitia Boynton's life had been rather a drab one as seen through
other people's eyes, but it had never seemed so to her till within the
last few years. Her own father had been the village doctor, but of him
she had no memory. Her mother's second marriage to a venerable country
lawyer, John Gilman, had brought a kindly, inefficient stepfather into
the family, a man who speedily became an invalid needing constant
nursing. The birth of David when Letty was three years old, brought a
new interest into the household, and the two children grew to be fast
friends; but when Mrs. Gilman died, and Letty found herself at
eighteen the mistress of the house, the nurse of her aged stepfather,
and the only guardian of a boy of fifteen, life became difficult. More
difficult still it became when the old lawyer died, for he at least
had been a sort of fictitious head of the family and his mere
existence kept David within bounds.

David was a lively, harum-scarum, handsome youth, good at his lessons,
popular with his companions, always in a scrape, into which he was
generally drawn by the minister's son, so the neighbors thought. At
any rate, Dick Larrabee, as David's senior, received the lion's share
of the blame when mischief was abroad. If Parson Larrabee's boy
couldn't behave any better than an unbelieving black-smith's, a
Methodist farmer's, or a Baptist storekeeper's, what was the use of
claiming superior efficacy for the Congregational form of belief?

"Dick's father's never succeeded in bringing him into the church,
though he's worked on him from the time he was knee-high to a toad,"
said Mrs. Popham.

"P'raps his mother kind o' vaccinated him with religion 'stid o'
leavin' him to take it the natural way, as the ol' sayin' is," was her
husband's response. "The first Mis' Larrabee was as good as gold, but
she may have overdone the trick a little mite, mebbe; and what's more,
I kind o' suspicion the parson thinks so himself. He ain't never been
quite the same sence Dick left home, 'cept in preaching'; an' I tell
you, Maria, his high-water mark there is higher 'n ever. Abel Dunn o'
Boston walked home from meetin' with me Thanksgivin', an', says he,
takin' off his hat an' moppin' his forehead, 'Osh,' says he, 'does
your minister preach like that every Sunday?' 'No,' says I, 'he don't.
If he did we couldn't stan' it! He preaches like that about once a
month, an' we don't care wha