But the worst trial of all remained. On Sunday he met at church and in the Young People’s Bible-Class all the girls who lived at or near Haynton. Some of them belonged to churches other than that which included the Hayn family among its members, but for once they waived denominational preferences and went to the First Church, and not only to see Phil’s new clothes and cane, of which Sol Mantring had brought such astonishing reports. They were as good and sweet-hearted, those Haynton girls, as any of their sex on the face of the earth: fashions a trifle old, and lack of professional advice as to how best to enhance their natural charms by borrowing from art, could not disguise the fact that some of them were quite pretty. It was not their fault that Phil’s heart had gone elsewhere for a mate, but that the young man himself was greatly to blame for such a course was the general opinion among them, and they would have at least the consolation of seeing how he had been affected by a step so unusual among Haynton youth. And what questions those girls’ eyes did ask! There was no need that they should put any of them into words; Phil understood them all, with the result that never before on Sunday had he heard so little of sermon, hymn, or prayer or betrayed so feeble a grasp of the topic of the day in the Bible-class. So seriously was his mind disturbed that he held himself sharply to account, “examined his evidences” in the time-honored and orthodox manner, and resolved that lack of occupation was at the bottom of his trouble. He would begin bright and early Monday morning an extension of the big ditch in the marsh land: if the mud and stones and roots and quicksands, the tugging and straining and perspiring, sure to be incident to the work, would not cure him, he grimly told himself, then his case was hopeless indeed.