"As true as my name is Tessie Reardon, I swear to you, Mr. Scott, that
the face of the man below in the churchyard is the face of the man who
drove the hearse!"

"What of it?" I said. "It's an honest trade."

"Then you think I _did_ see the hearse?"

"Oh," I said diplomatically, "if you really did, it might not be unlikely
that the man below drove it. There is nothing in that."

Tessie rose, unrolled her scented handkerchief, and taking a bit of gum
from a knot in the hem, placed it in her mouth. Then drawing on her
gloves she offered me her hand, with a frank, "Good-night, Mr. Scott,"
and walked out.




II

The next morning, Thomas, the bell-boy, brought me the _Herald_ and
a bit of news. The church next door had been sold. I thanked Heaven for
it, not that being a Catholic I had any repugnance for the congregation
next door, but because my nerves were shattered by a blatant exhorter,
whose every word echoed through the aisle of the church as if it had been
my own rooms, and who insisted on his r's with a nasal persistence which
revolted my every instinct. Then, too, there was a fiend in human shape,
an organist, who reeled off some of the grand old hymns with an