“I’ve heard sermons that were funny,” she said, “though they wasn’t intended to be; but what I’ve heard of yours ain’t that kind.  I wish you’d let me in on the joke.  I haven’t been feelin’ like laughin’ for the last fortni’t.”

She had been rather grave and preoccupied, for her, of late.  Bustling and busy she always was, never sitting down to “rest,” as she called it, without a lap full of sewing.  The minister’s clothes were mended and his socks darned as they had not been since his mother’s day.  And with him, at meal times, or after supper in the sitting room, she was always cheerful and good-humored.  But he had heard her sigh at her work, and once, when she thought herself unobserved, he saw her wipe her eyes with her apron.

“No, no,” she protested, when he asked if anything had gone wrong.  “I’m all right.  Got a little cold or somethin’, I guess, that’s all.”

She would not give any other explanation and absolutely refused to see the doctor.  Ellery did not press the matter.  He believed the “cold” to be but an excuse and wondered what the real trouble might be.  It seemed to him to date from the evening of his chapel experience.

He told no one, not even her, of Kyan’s confidential disclosure, and, after some speculation as to whether or not there might be a sequel, put the whole ludicrous affair out of his mind.  He worked hard in his study and at his pastoral duties, and was conscious of a pleasant feeling that he was gaining his people’s confidence and esteem.

A week from the following Sunday he dined in state at the Daniels’s table.  Captain Elkanah was gracious and condescending.  Annabel was more than that.  She was dressed in her newest gown and was so very gushing and affable that the minister felt rather embarrassed.  When, after the meal was over, Captain Elkanah excused himself and went upstairs for his Sabbath nap, the embarrassment redoubled.  Miss Annabel spoke very confidentially of her loneliness, without “congenial society,” of how very much she did enjoy Mr. Ellery’s intellectual sermons, and especially what a treat it had been to have him as a guest.

“You must dine here every Sunday,” she said.  “It will be no trouble at all, and if you say no, I shall feel that it is because you don’t want to see me—­father and me, of course, I mean.”

The minister didn’t accept this pressing invitation; on the other hand, he could not refuse it absolutely.  He did not like Miss Daniels overmuch, but she was the daughter of his leading parishioner and she and her parent did seem to like him.  So he dodged the issue and said she was very kind.

He left the big house as soon as he could without giving offense, and started back toward the parsonage.  But the afternoon was so fine and the early summer air so delightful that he changed his mind and, jumping the fence at the foot of Cannon Hill, set off across the fields toward the bluffs and the bay shore.