briefly. Mr. Baker was slightly offended and told his wife when
he went home that that the biggest Meredith girl seemed a very
shy, sulky little thing, without manners enough to speak when she
was spoken to. But nothing worse came of it, and generally their
penances did no harm to themselves or anybody else. All of them
were beginning to feel quite cocksure that after all, it was a
very easy matter to bring yourself up.

"I guess people will soon see that we can behave ourselves
properly as well as anybody," said Faith jubilantly. "It isn't
hard when we put our minds to it."

She and Una were sitting on the Pollock tombstone. It had been a
cold, raw, wet day of spring storm and Rainbow Valley was out of
the question for girls, though the manse and the Ingleside boys
were down there fishing. The rain had held up, but the east wind
blew mercilessly in from the sea, cutting to bone and marrow.
Spring was late in spite of its early promise, and there was even
yet a hard drift of old snow and ice in the northern corner of
the graveyard. Lida Marsh, who had come up to bring the manse a
mess of herring, slipped in through the gate shivering. She
belonged to the fishing village at the harbour mouth and her
father had, for thirty years, made a practice of sending a mess
from his first spring catch to the manse. He never darkened a
church door; he was a hard drinker and a reckless man, but as
long as he sent those herring up to the manse every spring, as
his father had done before him, he felt comfortably sure that his
account with the Powers That Govern was squared for the year. He
would not have expected a good mackerel catch if he had not so
sent the first fruits of the season.