He could not talk to Elias. He could not lecture him. He would only be dashing his words against the accumulated evil of years of bondage as the ripples of a summer sea beat against a stone wall. It was not the wickedness of this boy he was fighting or even the wrong-doing of Mt. Hope. It was the aggregation of the evils of the fathers, the grandfathers, the masters and mistresses of these people. Against this what could talk avail? The boy slept on, and the afternoon passed heavily away. Aunt Caroline was finding solace in her pipe, and Stephen Gray sulked in moody silence beside the hearth. Neither of them joined their guest at evening service. He went, however. It was hard to face those people again after the events of the morning. He could feel them covertly nudging each other and grinning as he went up to the pulpit. He chided himself for the momentary annoyance it caused him. Were they not like so many naughty, irresponsible children? The service passed without unpleasantness, save that he went home with an annoyingly vivid impression of a yellow girl with red ribbons on her hat, who pretended to be impressed by his sermon and made eyes at him from behind her handkerchief. On the way to his room that night, as he passed Stephen Gray, the old man whispered huskily, "It's de fus' time 'Lias evah done dat." It was the only word he had spoken since morning. A sound sleep refreshed Dokesbury, and restored the tone to his overtaxed nerves. When he came out in the morning, Elias was already in the kitchen. He too had slept off his indisposition, but it had been succeeded by a painful embarrassment that proved an effectual barrier to all intercourse with him. The minister talked lightly and amusingly, but the boy never raised his eyes from his plate, and only spoke when he was compelled to answer some direct questions. Harold Dokesbury knew that unless he could overcome this reserve, his power over the youth was gone. He bent every effort to do it. "What do you say to a turn down the street with me?" he asked as he rose from breakfast. 'Lias shook his head. "What! You haven't deserted me already?" The older people had gone out, but young Gray looked furtively about before he replied: "You know I ain't fittin' to go out with you--aftah--aftah--yestiddy." A dozen appropriate texts rose in the preacher's mind, but he knew that it was not a preaching time, so he contented himself with saying,-- "Oh, get out! Come along!" "No, I cain't. I cain't. I wisht I could! You needn't think I's ashamed, 'cause I ain't. Plenty of 'em git drunk, an' I don't keer nothin' 'bout dat"--this in a defiant tone. "Well, why not come along then?" "I tell you I cain't. Don't ax me no mo'. It ain't on my account I won't go. It's you." "Me! Why, I want you to go." "I know you does, but I mustn't. Cain't you see that dey'd be glad to say dat--dat you was in cahoots wif me an' you tuk yo' dram on de sly?"