Guy sent back this stage-whisper from
the front of the procession, to Margaret, his wife, who was walking with
Father Fernald, her hand on his gallant arm. In John Fernald's day a man
always offered his arm to the lady he escorted.

"He caught sight of Mr. Blake, across the road. They're going in
together," Margaret replied. "I think Mr. Blake is to have a part in
the service."

"Old Ebenezer Blake? You don't say!" Father Fernald ejaculated in
astonishment. He had not been told of Sewall's visit to the aged
minister. "Well--well--that is thoughtful of William Sewall.
I don't suppose Elder Blake has taken part in a service in fifteen
years--twenty, maybe. He used to be a great preacher, too, in his day.
I used to listen to him, when I was a young man, and think he could put
things in about as interesting a way as any preacher I ever heard. Good
man, too, he was--and is. But nobody's thought of asking him to make a
prayer in public since--I don't know when. --Well, well--look at the
people going in! I guess we'd better be getting right along to our
seats, or there won't be any left."

VII

The organ was playing--very softly. Carolyn was a skilful manipulator
of keyboards, and she had discovered that by carefully refraining from
the use of certain keys--discreetly marked by postage stamps--she could
produce a not unmusical effect of subdued harmony. This unquestionably
added very much to the impression of a churchly atmosphere, carried out
to the eye by the Christmas wreathing and twining of the heavy ropes of
shining laurel leaves, and by the massing of the whole pulpit-front in
the soft, dark green of hemlock boughs and holly. To the people who
entered the house with vivid memories of the burning July day when words
hardly less burning had seemed to scorch the barren walls, this lamp-lit
interior, clothed with the garments of the woods and fragrant with their
breath, seemed a place so different that it could hardly be the same.

But the faces were the same--the faces. And George Tomlinson did not
look at Asa Fraser, though he passed him in the aisle, beard to beard.
Miss Jane Pollock stared hard at the back of Mrs. Maria Hill's bonnet,
in the pew in front of her, but when Mrs. Hill turned about to glance up
at the organ-loft, to discover who was there, Miss Pollock's face became
as adamant, and her eyes remained fixed on her folded hands until Mrs.
Hill had twisted about again, and there was no danger of th