“I wish I had a family plot,” said Peter, rather wistfully.  “I haven’t anything you fellows have.  The Craigs are just buried anywhere they happen to die.”

“I’d like to buried here when I die,” said Felix.  “But I hope it won’t be for a good while yet,” he added in a livelier tone, as we moved onward to the church.

The interior of the church was as old-fashioned as its exterior.  It was furnished with square box pews; the pulpit was a “wine-glass” one, and was reached by a steep, narrow flight of steps.  Uncle Alec’s pew was at the top of the church, quite near the pulpit.

Peter’s appearance did not attract as much attention as we had fondly expected.  Indeed, nobody seemed to notice him at all.  The lamps were not yet lighted and the church was filled with a soft twilight and hush.  Outside, the sky was purple and gold and silvery green, with a delicate tangle of rosy cloud above the elms.

“Isn’t it awful nice and holy in here?” whispered Peter reverently.  “I didn’t know church was like this.  It’s nice.”

Felicity frowned at him, and the Story Girl touched her with her slippered foot to remind him that he must not talk in church.  Peter stiffened up and sat at attention during the service.  Nobody could have behaved better.  But when the sermon was over and the collection was being taken up, he made the sensation which his entrance had not produced.

Elder Frewen, a tall, pale man, with long, sandy side-whiskers, appeared at the door of our pew with the collection plate.  We knew Elder Frewen quite well and like him; he was Aunt Janet’s cousin and often visited her.  The contrast between his week-day jollity and the unearthly solemnity of his countenance on Sundays always struck us as very funny.  It seemed so to strike Peter; for as Peter dropped his cent into the plate he laughed aloud!

Everybody looked at our pew.  I have always wondered why Felicity did not die of mortification on the spot.  The Story Girl turned white, and Cecily turned red.  As for that poor, unlucky Peter, the shame of his countenance was pitiful to behold.  He never lifted his head for the remainder of the service; and he followed us down the aisle and across the graveyard like a beaten dog.  None of us uttered a word until we reached the road, lying in the white moonshine of the May night.  Then Felicity broke the tense silence by remarking to the Story Girl,

“I told you so!”

The Story Girl made no response.  Peter sidled up to her.

“I’m awful sorry,” he said contritely.  “I never meant to laugh.  It just happened before I could stop myself.  It was this way—­”

“Don’t you ever speak to me again,” said the Story Girl, in a tone of cold concentrated fury.  “Go and be a Methodist, or a Mohammedan, or anything!  I don’t care what you are!  You have humiliated me!”

She marched off with Sara Ray, and Peter dropped back to us with a frightened face.