When, promptly at ten o’clock, the minister returned from his walk, he found Mrs. Rogers waiting in the sitting room.  It is a prime qualification of an alert reporter to be first on the scene of sensation.  Didama was seldom beaten.  Mr. Ellery’s catechism began.  Before it was over Keziah opened the door to admit Miss Pepper and her brother.  “Kyan” was nervous and embarrassed in the housekeeper’s presence.  Lavinia was a glacier, moving majestically and freezing as it moved.  Keziah, however, was not even touched by the frost; she greeted the pair cordially, and begged them to “take off their things.”

It was dinner time before the catechizers departed.  The catechized came to the table with an impaired appetite.  He looked troubled.

“Don’t let it worry you, Mr. Ellery,” observed Keziah calmly.  “I think I can satisfy you.  Honest and true, I ain’t half as bad as you might think.”

The minister looked more troubled than before; also surprised.

“Why, Mrs. Coffin!” he cried.  “Could you hear—­”

“No, no!  I couldn’t hear nothin’ in that closet except my own opinion on dirt and dust.  But if I was as deaf as the man that set on the powder keg and dropped his pipe ashes into it, it wouldn’t have made any difference.  The man said after they picked him up that they needn’t have been so rough, he’d have moved without bein’ pushed if they’d have made signs they wanted to use the keg.  And if I was out in the next lot I’d have known what you was listenin’ to in that sittin’ room.  They hinted that they were real sorry for you, but ’twasn’t any of their doin’s.  The parish committee, bein’ just men, was apt to make mistakes in certain matters.  Of course everything might be well enough, and if you wa’n’t too particular about cookin’ and so on, why—­Anyhow, you mustn’t think that they were criticisin’.  ’Twas only that they took an interest and—­That was about it, wasn’t it?”

“Mrs. Coffin, I—­I hope you don’t think I paid any attention to their remarks—­of that kind, I mean.  Honestly, I did my best to stop them.  I said—­”

“Man alive!  I’m not worried.  Why should you be?  We were talkin’ about trust just now—­or I was.  Well, you and I’ll have to take each other on trust for a while, until we see whether we’re goin’ to suit.  If you see anything that I’m goin’ wrong in, I wish you’d tell me.  And I’ll do the same by you, if that’s agreeable.  You’ll hear a lot of things said about me, but if they’re very bad I give you my word they ain’t true.  And, to be real frank, I’ll probably hear some about you, which I’ll take for what they’re worth and considerin’ who said ’em.  That’s a good wholesome agreement, I think, for both of us.  What do you think?”

John Ellery said, with emphasis, that he thought well of it.  He began to realize that this woman, with her blunt common sense, was likely to be a pilot worth having in the difficult waters which he must navigate as skipper of the Regular church in Trumet.  Also, he began to realize that, as such a skipper, he was most inexperienced.  And Captain Daniels had spoken highly—­condescendingly but highly—­of his housekeeper’s qualifications and personality.  So the agreement was ratified, with relief on his part.