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“And anyway,” interjected Maria Sharp, who always saved the situation, “you just wait and see if the Methodists don’t say they’d rather have no carpet at all than have one that don’t go all over the floor. I know ’em!” and she put on her hood and blanket-shawl as she gave one last fond look at the improvements.

“I’m going home to get my supper, and come back afterward to lay the carpet in my pew; my beans and brown bread will be just right by now, and perhaps it will rest me a little; besides, I must feed ‘Zekiel.”

As Nancy Wentworth spoke, she sat in a corner of her own modest rear seat, looking a little pale and tired. Her waving dark hair had loosened and fallen over her cheeks, and her eyes gleamed from under it wistfully. Nowadays Nancy’s eyes never had the sparkle of gazing into the future, but always the liquid softness that comes from looking backward.

“The church will be real cold by then, Nancy,” objected Mrs. Burbank.–“Good-night, Mrs. Baxter.”

“Oh, no! I shall be back by half-past six, and I shall not work long. Do you know what I believe I’ll do, Mrs. Burbank, just through the holidays? Christmas and New Year’s both coming on Sunday this year, there’ll be a great many out to church, not counting the strangers that’ll come to the special service to-morrow. Instead of putting down my own pew carpet that’ll never be noticed here in the back, I’ll lay it in the old Peabody pew, for the red aisle-strip leads straight up to it; the ministers always go up that side, and it does look forlorn.”

“That’s so! And all the more because my pew, that’s exactly opposite in the left wing, is new carpeted and cushioned,” replied the president. “I think it’s real generous of you, Nancy, because the Riverboro folks, knowing that you’re a member of the carpet committee, will be sure to notice, and think it’s queer you haven’t made an effort to carpet your own pew.”

“Never mind!” smiled Nancy wearily. “Riverboro folks never go to bed on Saturday nights without wondering what Edgewood is thinking about them!”

The minister’s wife stood at her window watching Nancy as she passed the parsonage.

“How wasted! How wasted!” she sighed. “Going home to eat her lonely supper and feed ‘Zekiel . . . I can bear it for the others, but not for Nancy . . . Now she has lighted her lamp, now she has put fresh pine on the fire, for new smoke comes from the chimney. Why should I sit down and serve my dear husband, and Nancy feed ‘Zekiel?”

There was some truth in Mrs. Baxter’s feeling. Mrs. Buzzell, for instance, had three sons; Maria Sharp was absorbed in her lame father and her Sunday-school work; and Lobelia Brewster would not have considered matrimony a blessing, even under the most favourable conditions. But Nancy was framed and planned for other things, and ‘Zekiel was an insufficient channel for her soft, womanly sympathy and her bright activity of mind and body.

‘Zekiel had lost his tail in a mowing-machine; ‘Zekiel had the asthma, and the immersion of his nose in milk made him sneeze, so he was wont to slip his paw in and out of the dish and lick it patiently for five minutes together. Nancy often watched him pityingly, giving him kind and gentle words to sustain his fainting spirit, but to-night she paid no heed to him, although he sneezed violently to attract her attention.

She had put her supper on the lighted table by the kitchen window and was pouring out her cup of tea, when a boy rapped at the door. “Here’s a paper and a letter, Miss Wentworth,” he said. “It’s the second this week, and they think over to the store that that Berwick widower must be settin’ up and takin’ notice!”

She had indeed received a letter the day before, an unsigned communication, consisting only of the words, “Second Epistle of John. Verse 12.”