Yes, there were faint lines around her mouth and under her eyes, and the contour of her cheek was not as girlish as it had been a month ago. "If that chart was at the bottom of the trouble--" But again why should he blame the chart or the agent, when the main fault was his? Taking off his coat, he laid it gently over her shoulders and seated himself so that the shadow of his body would screen her from a ray of sun that lay across her closed eyelids. The minister's voice rose and fell in earnest exhortation. He was preaching an unusually long sermon that morning, and John was glad, for the longer his sermon, the longer would be Mary's sleep. As for himself, he needed no sermon within church walls. He was listening to the voice of his conscience preaching to him of things undone and of judgment to come. "It's curious," he said to himself, "that a man can't see a thing that's goin' on right under his own eyes and in his own house and that concerns his own wife." Suddenly a new sound was heard from the church, a duet of infant wails that drowned the minister's words, the voices of two young protestants making known their objections to the rite of infant baptism. John smiled as he pictured the scene within. "I wouldn't be in Sam Sawyer's place now for ten dollars," he mentally declared; "holdin' them squallin' young ones, and everybody in church laughin' in their sleeves." The lamentations of the twins gradually subsided. The notes of the organ sounded, and the choir sang joyfully. There was a hush, then the moving of many feet as the congregation rose for the benediction; another hush, then a murmur of voices growing louder as the little crowd crossed the threshold of the church, and came into the freedom of God's great out-of-doors. Mary opened her eyes and started up with an exclamation of self-reproach at the sight of John in his shirt sleeves and the realization that she had slept all through the minister's sermon. "Take it easy," said John, smiling at her and putting on his coat with more than his usual deliberation. "Your hair's all right, and you look fifty per cent brighter than you did an hour ago. You needed that nap worse'n you need Brother Smith's sermon. Now sit still and let me do the talkin' and explainin'." "Yes, Mis' Morrison," as the neighbors came hastening up with kindly inquiries, "Mary wasn't feelin' very well when we started this mornin', but she's all right now. She's been workin' a little too hard lately, and I'm afraid I haven't been as careful of her as I ought to 'a' been."