ce, while he got
out at intervals,--

"Jest--creep--High--such a fellow!" in staccato jerks that made every one
else laugh from sympathy.

"I call 'em that because Mother Schmidt made them for me so that I could
steal a march on my mother-in-law, and she's a Catholic and knew how to do
it. Talking of Catholics and what Washington calls the 'Peskypalians,' who
is going to church to-day?"

"I am going to walk over to Dale with Bijou Brown and her father," said
Ethel.

"That isn't as nice a church as ours. We will take the others into Kalsing,
eh, husband?" said Mabel; "that is, if they will come."

"I will go to the scaffold with Mrs. Ketchum," protested Sir Robert
gallantly. "What do you youngsters say?"

"Ramsay and I thought we would walk over to that little village on the
crest of a hill that one can see from my window," said Mr. Heathcote.

"You had much better go to church, --much better. But of course your soul
is your own," said Sir Robert.

"You won't have much body left when you get back: it is a good twenty
miles," remarked Mr. Ketchum.

"Oh, that is nothing." replied Mr. Ramsay.

"Forty miles there and back! Are they crazy?" Mrs. Ketchum asked of Mabel
_sotto voce_; to which a smile and shake of the head came in answer.--"The
day is very damp, Job. I am almost afraid to go out; but it is my duty,
and I will."

"That's right, ma. Do your duty. It is a good earthly as well as heavenly
investment," replied Mr. Ketchum.

"But I wish, son, that you would live in Kalsing, next to the church, or
in New York, which would be better. I saw a beautiful house advertised in
the neighborhood of Trinity Church the other day, and wrote to ask about
it," said Mrs. Ketchum, who was always in spirit moving the family away
from Fairfield.

"You are too speculative, ma, entirely," said he. "You are like my partner,
Richardson, who would write to ask the Czar what he would take for the
Winter Palace, if I'd let him, when if steamships were a dollar a dozen he
couldn't put up enough to buy a gang-plank. I can't move next to a church,
because all you womenites belong to different ones; but I can take a room
for you in the steeple and have an elevator put in that will make close
connection with the services, if you like."

"Don't be irreverent, my son," said Mrs. Ketchum, who, like some other
Protestants, believed in an infallible steeple, if not an infallible Pope.
"I don't expect _my_ wishes to be considered in any