It made no difference, said Mr. Mullen, replacing the handkerchief somewhere under his white surplice, whether a woman was ugly or beautiful, since they possessed Scriptural authority for the statement that beauty was vain, and no God-fearing man would rank loveliness of face or form above the capacity for self-sacrifice and the unfailing attendance upon the sick and the afflicted in any parish.  Beauty, indeed, was but too often a snare for the unwary—­temptresses, he had been told, were usually beautiful persons.

Molly’s lips trembled into a smile, and her eyes were wide and bright as she met those of the preacher.  For an instant he looked at her, gentle, admonishing, reproachful—­then his gaze passed over Judy’s seraphic features to the face of an old grey horse that stared wonderingly in through the south window.  Along the whitewashed plank fence of the church-yard, other horses were waiting patiently for the service to end, and from several side saddles, of an ancient pattern, hung flopping alpaca riding skirts, which the farmer’s wives or daughters had worn over their best gowns to church.  A few locust trees shed their remaining small yellow leaves on the sunken graves, which were surrounded by crumbling wooden enclosures.  Here and there, farther off, a flat tombstone was still visible in the tall grass; and over the dust of old Jonathan Gay a high marble cross, selected by his brother’s widow, bore the words, unstained by the dripping trees, and innocent of satire:  “Here lieth in the hope of a joyful resurrection—–­”

At the end of the service there was a rustle either of relief or disappointment, and the congregation filed slowly through the south doors, where the old grey horse stood resigned and expectant amid the obliterated graves.  Mrs. Gay, who had lingered in the walk to speak to Mr. Mullen, raised her plaintive violet eyes to his face when he appeared.

“You are always so comforting.  I don’t know how to thank you for helping me,” she murmured, and added impulsively to the little old woman at his side, “Oh, what a blessing such a son must be to you!”

“Orlando’s never given me a moment’s worry in his life, ma’am—­not even when he was teething,” replied Mrs. Mullen, who looked sharper and more withered than ever in the broad daylight.  “If you’ll believe me, he wasn’t more than six months old when I said to his father that I could tell by the look of him he was intended for the ministry.  Such sweetness, such self-control even as an infant.”

“How happy he must make you!  And then, to have the privilege of hearing his beautiful sermons!  But you’ll lose him some day, as I was just saying to Kesiah.  It won’t be long before some fortunate woman takes him away from you.  We can only hope she will be worthy of the ideal he has for her.”

“Ah, that’s just it, Mrs. Gay, I sometimes tell myself there isn’t a woman in the world that’s fit for him.”

She spoke as fast as she could, eager to dilate on the subject of the embarrassed Orlando’s virtues, flattered in her motherly old heart by the praise of his sermons, and yet, all the time, while her peaked chin worked excitedly, thinking about the roasted young pig that waited for her to attend to the garnishing.