Rain was falling in torrents, slanting past the windows of the old parsonage in long gray lines, gurgling up between loosened panes, and drip-dropping resoundingly in the rusty pan the minister had set under a broken spot in the ceiling.  Upstairs a loosened shutter banged intermittently under the impact of the wind, which howled past, to lose itself with great commotion in the tops of the tall evergreens in the churchyard.  It was the sort of day when untoward events, near and far, stand out with unpleasant prominence against the background of one’s everyday life.  A day in which a man is led, whether he will or not, to take stock of himself and to balance with some care the credit and debit sides of his ledger.

Wesley Elliot had been working diligently on his sermon since nine o’clock that morning, at which hour he had deserted Mrs. Solomon Black’s comfortable tight roof, to walk under the inadequate shelter of a leaking umbrella to the parsonage.

Three closely written pages in the minister’s neat firm handwriting attested his uninterrupted diligence.  At the top of the fourth page he set a careful numeral, under it wrote “Thirdly,” then paused, laid down his pen, yawned wearily and gazed out at the dripping shrubbery.  The rain had come too late to help the farmers, he was thinking.  It was always that way:  too much sunshine and dry weather; then too much rain—­floods of it, deluges of it.

He got up from his chair, stretched his cramped limbs and began marching up and down the floor.  He had fully intended to get away from Brookville before another winter set in.  But there were reasons why he felt in no hurry to leave the place.  He compelled himself to consider them.

Was he in love with Lydia Orr?  Honestly, he didn’t know.  He had half thought he was, for a whole month, during which Lydia had faced him across Mrs. Solomon Black’s table three times a day.

As he walked up and down, he viewed the situation.  Lydia had declared, not once but often, that she wanted friends.  Women always talked that way, and meant otherwise.  But did she?  The minister shook his head dubiously.  He thought of Lydia Orr, of her beauty, of her elusive sweetness.  He was ashamed to think of her money, but he owned to himself that he did.

Then he left his study and rambled about the chill rooms of the lower floor.  From the windows of the parlor, where he paused to stare out, he could look for some distance up the street.  He noticed dully the double row of maples from which yellowed leaves were already beginning to fall and the ugly fronts of houses, behind their shabby picket fences.  A wagon was creaking slowly through a shallow sea of mud which had been dust the day before:  beyond the hunched figure of the teamster not a human being was in sight.  Somewhere, a dog barked fitfully and was answered by other dogs far away; and always the shutter banged at uncertain intervals upstairs.  This nuisance, at least, could be abated.  He