“Ringing?” responded Ford.  “So it is!  I regret to say we are not yet ready to go.”

At the same moment Dab was whispering,—­

“We mustn’t start until it’s nearly done tolling.”

“What’s that?” asked Frank.

“Don’t you know?  It’s always so in the country.  First they ring the bell, as it’s ringing now.  That’s to set people a-going.  Then they toll it.  You’ll hear in a few minutes.  That means, the time’s up.”

Ford Foster’s city training had not taught him as much as that, but he was glad to know it.

Mrs. Myers once more urged upon them the necessity of making haste.

“It won’t do to be late,” she said.  “I never allow myself to be a minute behind time.”

The last clause sounded a very, very little impatient; but Ford once more politely expressed his sorrow, and abstained from putting on his coat.  At that moment, too, Dick Lee came tiptoeing in from his cheerless garret, and looking astonishingly spruce.  The “shine” on his shoes was a brilliancy to be remembered; and so was the shine on his face, and the sunset glow of his necktie.

“Sh!  Dick,” said Dab.  “Hold still a minute.  The bell’s beginning to toll.”

“I fear Almira and I will be compelled to start,” said Mrs. Myers regretfully.  “Perhaps you can overtake us if you hurry.”

“Perhaps we could,” replied Ford, “but I beg you will not let yourself be late on our account.  We’re coming.”

He began to put his coat on as she and Almira went through the gate.  In such a village as that, no one was afraid to leave a house alone for an hour or two.  Not only was the door-lock “on the latch” as usual, but Dick Lee had been vaguely expected to stay at home.  There, again, Mrs. Myers had taken too much for granted; and she had not said a word to him about it.

Just as she heard the bell give its last few rapid and warning strokes, and disappeared through the church-door, she might have seen, had she turned back and looked once more towards her own front gate, four well-dressed youngsters hurrying from it across the street as if a great deal depended on their reaching church before service could begin.

“It’s very kind of Mrs. Myers to invite us,” remarked Ford, “but she never thought how bashful we’d be about it.”

They were quickly within the ample porch of the roomy and not at all overcrowded edifice, and were greeted by two or three benevolent-looking elderly gentlemen, with a degree of prompt cordiality which left little to be asked for.

The deacons were awake to their duty relating to new scholars,—­“students” they called them; and every attention was paid these four who had begun so well their first Sunday.

So it would be at every church on that green; and it would really be about the middle of the term before stray “academy boys” would be left to find their own way to well-whittled benches in the galleries.