So it went on.  She set them all laughing; and then, with a twist of the eyes and a change of voice, lo, and behold, she had them nearly crying in the same breath.  Under the pressure of these jumbled emotions, brethren began to rise up in their pews and say what they would give.  The wonderful woman had something smart and apt to say about each fresh contribution, and used it to screw up the general interest a notch further toward benevolent hysteria.  With songs and jokes and impromptu exhortations and prayers she kept the thing whirling, until a sort of duel of generosity began between two of the most unlikely men—­Erastus Winch and Levi Gorringe.  Everybody had been surprised when Winch gave his first $50; but when he rose again, half an hour afterward, and said that, owing to the high public position of some of the new members on probation, he foresaw a great future for the church, and so felt moved to give another $25, there was general amazement.  Moved by a common instinct, all eyes were turned upon Levi Gorringe, and he, without the slightest hesitation, stood up and said he would give $100.  There was something in his tone which must have annoyed Brother Winch, for he shot up like a dart, and called out, “Put me down for fifty more;” and that brought Gorringe to his feet with an added $50, and then the two went on raising each other till the assemblage was agape with admiring stupefaction.

This gladiatorial combat might have been going on till now, the Sunday-school superintendent concluded, if Winch hadn’t subsided.  The amount of the contributions hadn’t been figured up yet, for Sister Soulsby kept the list; but there had been a tremendous lot of money raised.  Of that there could be no doubt.

The Presiding Elder now told Theron that the Quarterly Conference had been adjourned yesterday till today.  He and Brother Davis were even now on their way to attend the session in the church next door.  The Elder added, with an obvious kindly significance, that though Theron was too ill to attend it, he guessed his absence would do him no harm.  Then the two men left the room, and Theron went to sleep again.

Another almost blank period ensued, this time lasting for forty-eight hours.  The young minister was enfolded in the coils of a fever of some sort, which Brother Soulsby, who had dabbled considerably in medicine, admitted that he was puzzled about.  Sometimes he thought that it was typhoid, and then again there were symptoms which looked suspiciously like brain fever.  The Methodists of Octavius counted no physician among their numbers, and when, on the second day, Alice grew scared, and decided, with Brother Soulsby’s assent, to call in professional advice, the only doctor’s name she could recall was that of Ledsmar.  She was conscious of an instinctive dislike for the vague image of him her fancy had conjured up, but the reflection that he was Theron’s friend, and so probably would be more moderate in his charges, decided her.