Pearlie had forgotten to tell Bugsey to come down when he was done, and so he stood irresolute, as the applause grew more and more deafening.  Pearl beckoned and waved and at last got him safely landed, and when Mrs. White announced that to-day was Taffy Day, owing to Miss Barner’s kindness, Bugsey’s cup of happiness was full.  Miss Barner said she had an extra big piece for the youngest member, Master Danny Watson.  Pearlie had not allowed any person to mention taffy to him because Danny could not bear to be disappointed.

But there were no disappointments that day.  Taffy enough for every one, amber-coloured taffy slabs with nuts in it, cream taffy in luscious nuggets, curly twists of brown and yellow taffy.  Oh look, there’s another plateful! and it’s coming this way.  “Have some more, Danny.  Oh, take a bigger piece, there’s lots of it.”  Was it a dream?

When the last little Band of Hoper had left the vestry, Mary Barner sat alone with her thoughts, looking with unseeing eyes at the red and silver mottoes on the wall.  Pledge cards which the children had signed were gaily strung together with ribbons across the wall behind her.  She was thinking of the little people who had just gone—­how would it be with them in the years to come?—­they were so sweet and pure and lovely now.  Unconsciously she bowed her head on her hands, and a cry quivered from her heart.  The yellow sunlight made a ripple of golden water on the wall behind her and threw a wavering radiance on her soft brown hair.

It was at that moment that the Rev. Hugh Grantley, the new Presbyterian minister, opened the vestry door.

CHAPTER V THE RELICT OF THE LATE MCGUIRE

Close beside the Watson estate with its strangely shaped dwelling stood another small house, which was the earthly abode of one Mrs. McGuire, also of Irish extraction, who had been a widow for forty years.  Mrs. McGuire was a tall, raw-boned, angular woman with piercing black eyes, and a firm forbidding jaw.  One look at Mrs. McGuire usually made a book agent forget the name of his book.  When she shut her mouth, no lips were visible; her upturned nose seemed seriously to contemplate running up under her sun bonnet to escape from this wicked world with all its troubling, and especially from John Watson, his wife and his family of nine.

One fruitful cause of dispute between Mrs. McGuire and the Watsons was the boundary line between the two estates.  In the spring Mrs. Watson and the boys put up a fence of green poplar poles where they thought the fence should be, hoping that it might serve the double purpose of dividing the lots and be a social barrier between them and the relict of the late McGuire.  The relict watched and waited and said not a word, but it was the ominous silence that comes before the hail.

Mrs. McGuire hated the Watson family collectively, but it was upon John Watson, the man of few words, that she lavished the whole wealth of her South of Ireland hatred, for John Watson had on more than one occasion got the better of her in a wordy encounter.