"I should like to go inside," she said, indifferently. "Would they
think it an intrusion?"

"Certainly not," he answered, with visions of a chair before him. "As a
matter of fact, I have a special invitation to become a member of that
flock--temporarily, at any rate."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"The land here" he answered, "is not entailed, and they are very anxious
to buy this little bit and own their chapel. I had a letter from a
worthy farmer and elder, Gideon Strong, on the matter yesterday. He
wound up by expressing a wish that I might join them in their service
one morning. This is their service, and here we are. Come!"

They crossed the street, and, to the obvious amazement of the little
congregation, stood in the doorway. A gaunt shepherd, with
weather-marked face and knotted fingers, handed them clumsily a couple
of chairs. Some of the small farmers rose and made a clumsy obeisance
to their temporal lord. Gideon Strong, six feet four, with great unbent
shoulders, and face as hard and rugged as iron, frowned them down, and
showed no signs of noticing his presence. Elsewhere he would have been
one of the first, proud man though he was, to stand bareheaded before
the owner of his farm and half a county, but in the house of God, humble
little building though it was, he reckoned all men equal.

Praying silently before them, on the eve of his first sermon, a young
man was kneeling. He had seen nothing of these newcomers, but of a
sudden as he knelt there, his thoughts and sensations in strange
confusion, himself half in revolt against what lay before him, there