lips again and again, hurried along for a few steps to return it,
stopped suddenly, thrust it into her breast, and then, passing the back
of her ungloved hand across her eyes, returned to the hotel, her eyes
cast down and her ears deaf to occasional remarks intended specially
for them.




CHAPTER XII.


Deacon Quickset was entirely truthful when he said to the keeper of the
beer saloon that he had worried his pastor again and again to call on
the repentant thief and try to bring him into the fold of the church;
but he probably did not know that the said pastor had opinions of his
own as to the time and manner in which such work should be done. Dr.
Guide, under whose spiritual ministrations the deacon had sat every
Sunday for many years, was a man of large experience in church work of
all kinds, and, although he was extremely orthodox, to the extent of
believing that those who already had united with his church were on the
proper road to heaven, he nevertheless realized, as a practical man,
that frequently there is more trouble with sheep in the road than with
those who are straying about.

He had devoted no little of his time since he had been settled over the
Bruceton church to the reclamation of doubtful characters of all kinds,
but he frequently confided to his wife that one of the most
satisfactory proofs to him of the divine origin of the church was that
those already inside it were those most in need of spiritual