surreptitiously filched from the woodbox.

"Well, I guess I'll be gittin' along towards meetin'," she said, in a
tone of unconcern, calculated to allay suspicion. "I'm in hopes to git
a mite o' terbacker out o' Hiram Cole, if he's settin' lookin' at his
pigs, where he is 'most every Sunday. I'll have a smoke afore I go in."

"Don't you be late!"

"I'm a-goin' in late, or not at all!" answered Nance, contradictorily.
"My bunnit ain't trimmed on the congregation side, an' I want to give
'em a chance to see it all round. I'm a-goin' up the aisle complete!"

Dorcas finished her work, and, having tidied her father's room, sat
down by his bedside for the simple rites that made their Sabbath holy.
With the first clanging stroke of the old bell, not half a mile away,
they fell into silence, waiting reverently through the necessary pause
for allowing the congregation to become seated. Then they went through
the service together, from hymn and prayer to the sermon. The parson
had his manuscript ready, and he began reading it, in the pulpit-voice
of his prime. At that moment, some of his old vigor came back to him,
and he uttered the conventional phrases of his church with conscious
power; though so little a man, he had always a sonorous delivery. After
a page or two, his hands began to tremble, and his voice sank.

"You read a spell, Dorcas," he whispered, in pathetic apology. "I'll
rest me a minute." So Dorcas read, and he listened. Presently he fell
asleep, and she still went on, speaking the words mechanically, and
busy with her own tumultuous thoughts. Amazement possessed her that the
world could be so full of joy to which she had long been deaf. She