"One," said the recording secretary.

"Jesus wept," answered Leon promptly.

There was not a sound in the church. You could almost hear the
butterflies pass. Father looked down and laid his lower lip in
folds with his fingers, like he did sometimes when it wouldn't
behave to suit him.

"Two," said the secretary after just a breath of pause.

Leon looked over the congregation easily and then fastened his
eyes on Abram Saunders, the father of Absalom, and said
reprovingly: "Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine
eyelids."

Abram straightened up suddenly and blinked in astonishment, while
father held fast to his lip.

"Three," called the secretary hurriedly.

Leon shifted his gaze to Betsy Alton, who hadn't spoken to her
next door neighbour in five years.

"Hatred stirreth up strife," he told her softly, "but love
covereth all sins."

Things were so quiet it seemed as if the air would snap.