“O Mis’ Kinney, ef ye’ll only read us one more! just one more! won’t ye, now?  Do say ye will, right off, this arternoon; or read the same one right over, ef that’s any easier for ye.  We’d like to hear jest that ‘n’ nothin’ else for a year to come!  O Mis’ Kinney! ‘twas jest like hearin’ the Elder himself.”

Poor Draxy was trembling.  Reuben came to her rescue.

“I hope you won’t take it unkindly of me,” he said, “but my daughter’s feeling more than’s good for her.  She must come home now.”  And Reuben drew her hand into his arm.

The people fell back sorry and conscience-stricken.

“We orter ha’ known better,” they said, “but she makes us forgit she’s flesh ‘n’ blood.”

“I will read you another sermon some time,” said Draxy, slowly.  “I shall be very glad to.  But not to-day.  I could not do it to-day.”  Then she smiled on them all, with a smile which was a benediction, and walked away holding Reuby’s hand very tightly, and leaning heavily on her father’s arm.

The congregation did not disperse; nothing since the Elder’s death had so moved them.  They gathered in knots on the church steps and in the aisles, and talked long and earnestly.  There was but one sentiment, one voice.

“It’s a thousand shames she ain’t a man,” said some of the young men.

“It ’ud be a thousand times more ef she wuz,” retorted Angy Plummer.  “I’d like to see the man that ‘ud do what she does, a comin’ right close to the very heart o’ yer’s ef she was your mother ‘n’ your sister ‘n’ your husband, and a blessed angel o’ God, all ter once.”

“But Angy, we only meant that then we could hev her for our minister,” they replied.

Angy turned very red, but replied, energetically,—­

“There ain’t any law agin a woman’s bein’ minister, thet I ever heerd on.  Howsomever, Mis’ Kinney never’d hear to anythin’ o’ that kind.  I don’ no’ for my part how she ever mustered up courage to do what she’s done, so kind o’ backward ‘n’ shy’s she is for all her strength.  But for my part, I wouldn’t ask for no other preachin’ all the rest o’ my life, than jest to hear Mis’ Kinney read one o’ her husband’s sermons every Sunday.”

“Why, Angy Plummer!” burst from more lips than one.  But the bold suggestion was only the half-conscious thought of every one there, and the discussion grew more and more serious.  Slowly the people dispersed to their homes, but the discussion still continued.  Late into night, by many a fireside, the matter was talked over, and late the next night, and the next, until a vague hope and a still vaguer purpose sprang up in the parish.

“She said she’d read another some day,” they reiterated.  “Most likely she’d ’s soon do it next Sunday, ‘n’ sooner, ’cause she’d be more used to’t than ef she waited a spell between.”

“But it won’t do to take it for granted she’s goin’ to, ‘n’ not git anybody,” said Deacon Swift, in great perplexity.  “I think Brother Plummer ‘n’ me’d better go ‘n’ ask her.”