When Carol read that letter she cried, and rubbed her face against her
husband's shoulder,--regardless of the dollar powder on his black coat.

"A teeny bit for father," she explained, "for all his girls are gone.
And a little bit for Fairy, but she has Gene. And quite a lot for
Larkie, but she has Jim and Violet." And then, clasping her arm about
his shoulders, which, despite her teasing remonstrance, he allowed to
droop a little, she cried exultantly: "But not one bit for me, for I
have you, and Connie is a poor, poverty-stricken, wretched little waif,
with nothing in the world worth having, only she doesn't know it yet."




CHAPTER IV

A WOMAN IN THE CHURCH

And there was a woman in the church.

There always is,--one who stands apart, distinct, different,--in the
community but not with it, in the church but not of it.

The woman in David's church was of a languorous, sumptuous type, built
on generous proportions, with a mass of dark hair waving low on her
forehead, with dark, straight-gazing, deep-searching eyes, the kind
that impel and hold all truanting glances. She was slow in movement,
suggesting a beautiful and commendable laziness. In public she talked