h-looking clothes than did most of the young men in
Cherryvale. Also, he was very old--nineteen, and a sophomore at the
State University. Very old. Naturally he was much wiser than Missy, for
all her acquired wisdom. She stood in awe of him. He had a way of asking
her absurd, foolish questions about things that everybody knew; and
when, to be polite, she had to answer him seriously in his own foolish
vein, he would laugh at her! So, though she admired him, she always
had an impulse to run away from him. She would have liked, now, in this
heavenly, religious mood, to run away lest he might ask her embarrassing
questions about it. But, before she had the chance, grandpa said:

"Why Missy, playing hymns? You'll be church organist before we know it!"

Missy blushed.

"'Asleep in Jesus' is my favourite, I think," commented grandma. "It's
the one I'd like sung over me at the last. Play it again, dear."

But Pete had picked up a sheet of music from the top of the piano.

"Let's have this, Missy." He turned to his grandmother. "Ought to hear
her do this rag--I've been teaching her double-bass."

Missy shrank back as he placed the rag-time on the music-rest.

"Oh, I'd rather not--to-day."

Pete smiled down at her--his amiable but condescending smile.

"What's the matter with to-day?" he asked.

Missy blushed again.

"Oh, I don't know--I just don't feel that way, I guess."

"Don't feel that way?" repeated Pete. "You're temperamental, are you?
How do you feel, Missy?"

Missy feared she was letting herself in for embarrassment; but this was
a holy subject. So she made herself answer:

"I guess I feel religious."

Pete shouted. "She feels religious! That's a good one! She guesses
she--"

"Peter, you should be ashamed of yourself!" reproved his grandmother.

"She's a scream!" he insisted. "Religious! That kid!"

"Well," defended Missy, timid and puzzled, but wounded to unwonted
bravery, "isn't it proper to feel like that on the Sabbath?"

Pete shouted again.

"Peter--stop that! You should be ashamed of yourself!" It was his
grandfather this time. Grandpa moved over to the piano and removed the
rag-time from off the hymnal, pausing to pat Missy on the head.

But Peter was not the age to be easily squelched.

"What does it feel like, Missy--the religious feeling?"

Missy, her eyes bright behind their blur, didn't answer. Indeed, she
could not have defined that sweetly sad glow, now so cruelly crushed,
even h