do you the least good."

Missy's heart sank deeper. How could she hope to exert a proper
religious influence if she didn't attend services regularly herself?
But father looked terribly adamantine.

"I think you'd better stay home from school today," he continued,
"it's still pretty blustery."

So Missy found herself spending the day comparatively alone in a
preternaturally quiet house--noisy little brother off at school,
Aunt Nettie's busy tongue absent, Marguerite, the hired girl, doing
the laundry down in the basement. And mother's being sick, as always
is the case when a mother is sick, seemed to add an extra heaviness
to the pervasive stillness. The blustery day invited reading, but
Missy couldn't find anything in the house she hadn't already read;
and she couldn't go to the Public Library because of her throat. And
couldn't practice because of mother's head. Time dragged on her
hands, and Satan found the mischief--though Missy devoutly believed
that it was the Lord answering her prayer.

She was idling at the front-parlour window when she saw Picker's
delivery wagon stop at the gate. She hurried back to the kitchen,
telling herself that Marguerite shouldn't be disturbed at her
washtubs. So she herself let Arthur in. All sprinkled with snow and
ruddy-cheeked and mischievous-eyed, he grinned at her as he emptied
his basket on the kitchen table.

"Well," he bantered, "did you pray for my sins last night?"