s' time," William Buttle's wife whispered. "I 'low
our watchin's wasted. Ah, this heart trouble! You never knows."

"_If_," Aunt Esther repeated, "she's let be."

We waited for the parson.

"Have Skipper Nicholas come?" Elizabeth asked.

"No, maid; 'tis not he, maid." They would still taunt her! They would
still taunt her, in the way of virtuous women; 'twas "Maid! Maid!"
until the heart of a man of honor--of a man of any sort--was fair
sickened of virtue and women. "'Tis the parson," said they.

Elizabeth sighed. "I wants a word along o' Skipper Nicholas," said
she, faintly, "when he've come."

Parson Lute softly entered from the kitchen, wiping the rain from his
face and hands, stepping on tiptoe over the bare floor. He was worn
and downcast. No inspiration, it seemed, had been granted in answer to
his praying. I loved him, of old, as did all the children of Twist
Tickle, to whom he was known because of gentlest sympathy, shown on
the roads in fair weather and foul at district-meeting time; and I was
glad that he had come to ease the passage to heaven of the mother of
Judith. The five women of Whisper Cove, taken unaware by this
stranger, stood in a flutter of embarrassment. They were not
unkind--they were curious concerning death and the power of parsons.
He laid a kind hand on Judith's head, shook hands with the women, and
upon each bestowed a whispered blessing, being absently said; and the
wives of Whisper Cove sat down and smoothed their skirts and folded
their hands, all flushed and shaking with expectation. They wondered,
no doubt, what he would accomplish--salvation or not: Parson Stump had
failed. Parson Lute seemed for a moment to be unnerved by the critical
attitude of his audience--made anxious for his reputation: a purely
professional concern, inevitably habitual. He was not conscious of
this, I am sure; he was too kind, too earnest in service, to consider
his reputation. But yet he must _do_--when another had failed. The
Lord had set him a hard task; but being earnest and kind, he had no
contempt, no lack of love, I am sure, for the soul the Lord had given
him to lose or to save--neither gross wish to excel, nor gross wish to
excuse.

"Daughter," he whispered, tenderly, to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth threw the coverlet over her head, so that only the tangled
fringe of her hair was left to see; and she began to laugh--a
coquettish trifling. Parson Lute gently uncovered the head.

"You isn't Parson St