"Ain't she a little mite too jolly for a minister's wife?" questioned
Mrs. Ossian Popham, who was a professional pessimist.

"If this world is a place of want, woe, wantonness, an' wickedness,
same as you claim, Maria, I don't see how a minister's wife _can_ be
too jolly!" was her husband's cheerful reply. "Look how she's melted
up the ice in both congregations, so't the other church is most
willin' we should prosper, so long as Mis' Larrabee stays here an' we
don't get too fur ahead of 'em in attendance. Me for the smiles,
Maria!"

And Osh Popham was right; for Reba Larrabee convinced the members of
the rival church (the rivalry between the two being in rigidity of
creed, not in persistency in good works) that there was room in heaven
for at least two denominations; and said that if they couldn't unite
in this world, perhaps they'd get round to it in the next. Finally,
she saved Letitia Boynton's soul alive by giving her a warm,
understanding friendship, and she even contracted to win back the
minister's absent son some time or other, and convince him of the
error of his ways.

"Let Dick alone a little longer, Luther," she would say; "don't hurry
him, for he won't come home so long as he's a failure; it would please
the village too much, and Dick hates the village. He doesn't accept
our point of view, that we must love our enemies and bless them that
despitefully use us. The village did despitefully use Dick, and for
that matter, David Gilman too. They were criticized, gossiped about,
judged without mercy. Nobody believed in them, nobody ever praised
them;--and what is that about praise being the fructifying sun in