“I’ve come now to the second head of my sermon—­what the bad place is like.”

He proceeded to describe the bad place.  Later on we discovered that he had found his material in an illustrated translation of Dante’s Inferno which had once been given to his Aunt Jane as a school prize.  But at the time we supposed he must be drawing from Biblical sources.  Peter had been reading the Bible steadily ever since what we always referred to as “the Judgment Sunday,” and he was by now almost through it.  None of the rest of us had ever read the Bible completely through, and we thought Peter must have found his description of the world of the lost in some portion with which we were not acquainted.  Therefore, his utterances carried all the weight of inspiration, and we sat appalled before his lurid phrases.  He used his own words to clothe the ideas he had found, and the result was a force and simplicity that struck home to our imaginations.

Suddenly Sara Ray sprang to her feet with a scream—­a scream that changed into strange laughter.  We all, preacher included, looked at her aghast.  Cecily and Felicity sprang up and caught hold of her.  Sara Ray was really in a bad fit of hysterics, but we knew nothing of such a thing in our experience, and we thought she had gone mad.  She shrieked, cried, laughed, and flung herself about.

“She’s gone clean crazy,” said Peter, coming down out of his pulpit with a very pale face.

“You’ve frightened her crazy with your dreadful sermon,” said Felicity indignantly.

She and Cecily each took Sara by an arm and, half leading, half carrying, got her out of the orchard and up to the house.  The rest of us looked at each other in terrified questioning.

“You’ve made rather too much of an impression, Peter,” said the Story Girl miserably.

“She needn’t have got so scared.  If she’d only waited for the third head I’d have showed her how easy it was to get clear of going to the bad place and go to heaven instead.  But you girls are always in such a hurry,” said Peter bitterly.

“Do you s’pose they’ll have to take her to the asylum?” said Dan in a whisper.

“Hush, here’s your father,” said Felix.

Uncle Alec came striding down the orchard.  We had never before seen Uncle Alec angry.  But there was no doubt that he was very angry.  His blue eyes fairly blazed at us as he said,

“What have you been doing to frighten Sara Ray into such a condition?”

“We—­we were just having a sermon contest,” explained the Story Girl tremulously.  “And Peter preached about the bad place, and it frightened Sara.  That is all, Uncle Alec.”

“All!  I don’t know what the result will be to that nervous delicate child.  She is shrieking in there and nothing will quiet her.  What do you mean by playing such a game on Sunday, and making a jest of sacred things?  No, not a word—­” for the Story Girl had attempted to speak.  “You and Peter march off home.  And the next time I find you up to such doings on Sunday or any other day I’ll give you cause to remember it to your latest hour.”