“What is it I’ve done to her?” he whispered.  “What does that big word mean?”

“Oh, never mind,” I said crossly—­for I felt that Peter had disgraced us—­“She’s just mad—­and no wonder.  Whatever made you act so crazy, Peter?”

“Well, I didn’t mean to.  And I wanted to laugh twice before that and didn’t.  It was the Story Girl’s stories made me want to laugh, so I don’t think it’s fair for her to be mad at me.  She hadn’t ought to tell me stories about people if she don’t want me to laugh when I see them.  When I looked at Samuel Ward I thought of him getting up in meeting one night, and praying that he might be guided in his upsetting and downrising.  I remembered the way she took him off, and I wanted to laugh.  And then I looked at the pulpit and thought of the story she told about the old Scotch minister who was too fat to get in at the door of it, and had to h’ist himself by his two hands over it, and then whispered to the other minister so that everybody heard him.

“’This pulpit door was made for speerits’—­and I wanted to laugh.  And then Mr. Frewen come—­and I thought of her story about his sidewhiskers—­how when his first wife died of information of the lungs he went courting Celia Ward, and Celia told him she wouldn’t marry him unless he shaved them whiskers off.  And he wouldn’t, just to be stubborn.  And one day one of them caught fire, when he was burning brush, and burned off, and every one thought he’d have to shave the other off then.  But he didn’t and just went round with one whisker till the burned one grew out.  And then Celia gave in and took him, because she saw there wasn’t no hope of him ever giving in.  I just remembered that story, and I thought I could see him, taking up the cents so solemn, with one long whisker; and the laugh just laughed itself before I could help it.”

We all exploded with laughter on the spot, much to the horror of Mrs. Abraham Ward, who was just driving past, and who came up the next day and told Aunt Janet we had “acted scandalous” on the road home from church.  We felt ashamed ourselves, because we knew people should conduct themselves decently and in order on Sunday farings-forth.  But, as with Peter, it “had laughed itself.”

Even Felicity laughed.  Felicity was not nearly so angry with Peter as might have been expected.  She even walked beside him and let him carry her Bible.  They talked quite confidentially.  Perhaps she forgave him the more easily, because he had justified her in her predictions, and thus afforded her a decided triumph over the Story Girl.

“I’m going to keep on going to church,” Peter told her.  “I like it.  Sermons are more int’resting than I thought, and I like the singing.  I wish I could make up my mind whether to be a Presbyterian or a Methodist.  I s’pose I might ask the ministers about it.”

“Oh, no, no, don’t do that,” said Felicity in alarm.  “Ministers wouldn’t want to be bothered with such questions.”