It was May Meeting Sunday. Nobody could come to use the chart, and she and John were riding together. A redbird carolled to its mate in the top of a wayside elm, and she laughed like a child. "Listen to that sweet bird!" she exclaimed. "Why, it can almost talk. Don't you hear the words it's singing? "'Sweet! Sweet! Sweet! _With_ you! _With_ you!'" "Smart bird," said John. "Sees you and me together and makes a song about it." And Mary laughed and blushed as her eyes met John's. "Oh!" she sighed, "I almost wish we could ride on and on and never come to the church. It seems a pity to lose any of this sunshine and wind." "Just say the word," said John, "and we'll keep right on and have a May Meetin' all to ourselves out at Blue Spring, or anywhere else you say. May Meetin's just a Sunday picnic, anyway." But Mary's conscience forbade such Sabbath breaking. It was all right to have a picnic after you had been to preaching, but to have the picnic without the previous church-going was not to be thought of. It was a Sunday of great events. Not only was it May Meeting Sunday, but the Sawyer twins were to be baptized, and Sidney Harris and his bride were to make their first appearance in public that day. Sidney had married a young girl from the upper part of the State, and it was rumored that her wedding clothes had been made in New York, that they were worth "a small fortune." One costume in particular, it was said, had cost "a cool hundred", and every woman in the church had a secret hope of seeing the gown at the May Meeting.