It was nearly eight o’clock.  The sound of the melodeon, with children’s voices, floated out from the white-painted meeting-house, all ablaze with light; or as much ablaze as a kerosene chandelier and six side lamps could make it.  The horse sheds were crowded with teams of various sorts, the horses well blanketed and standing comfortably in straw; and the last straggler was entering the right-hand door of the church as Dick neared the steps.  Simultaneously the left-hand door opened, and on the background of the light inside appeared the figure of Mrs. Todd, the wife of his ancient enemy, the senior deacon.  Dick could see that a sort of dressing-room had been curtained off in the little entry, as it had often been in former times of tableaux and concerts and what not.  Valor, not discretion, was the better policy, and walking boldly up to the steps Dick took off his fur cap and said, “Good-evening, Mrs. Todd!”

“Good gracious me!  Where under the canopy did you hail from, Dick Larrabee?  Was your folks lookin’ for you?  They ain’t breathed a word to none of us.”

“No, I’m a surprise, Mrs. Todd.”

“Well, I know you’ve given me one!  Will you wait a spell till the recitations is over?  You’d scare the children so, if you go in now, that they’d forget their pieces more’n they gen’ally do.”

“I can endure the loss of the ‘pieces,’” said Dick with a twinkle in his eye.

At which Mrs. Todd laughed comprehendingly, and said:  “Isaac’ll get a stool or a box or something; there ain’t a vacant seat in the church.  I wish we could say the same o’ Sundays!—­Isaac!  Isaac!  Come out and see who’s here,” she called under her breath.  “He won’t be long.  He’s tendin’ John Trimble in the dressin’-room.  He was the only one in the village that was willin’ to be Santa Claus an’ he wa’n’t over-willin’.  Now he’s et something for supper that disagrees with him awfully and he’s all doubled up with colic.  We can’t have the tree till the exercises is over, but that won’t be mor’n fifteen minutes, so I sent Isaac home to make a mustard plaster.  He’s puttin’ it on John now.  John’s dreadful solemn and unamusin’ when he’s well, and I can’t think how he’ll act when he’s all crumpled up with stomach-ache, an’ the mustard plaster drawin’ like fire.”

Dick threw back his head and laughed.  He had forgotten just how unexpected Beulah’s point of view always was.

Deacon Todd now came out cautiously.

“I’ve got it on him, mother, tho’ he’s terrible unresigned to it; an’ I’ve given him a stiff dose o’ Jamaica Ginger.  We can tell pretty soon whether he can take his part.”

“Here’s Dick Larrabee come back, Isaac, just when we thought he had given up Beulah for good an’ all!” said Mrs. Todd.

The Deacon stood on the top step, his gaunt, grizzled face peering above the collar of his great coat; not a man to eat his words very often, Deacon Isaac Todd.

“Well, young man,” he said, “you’ve found your way home, have you?  It’s about time, if you want to see your father alive!”