“Were you afraid he was going to call on you to pray, Julie?” Mrs. Wicket repeated all over again. “Well--well, he did,--” Julie blundered--and knew at once that she was lost. “That is--I--I was afraid he might,” she added, frightened into the truth. Mrs. Wicket’s eyes snapped wide open. “Why, Julie,” she cried. “Why, how on earth did you know he called on you?” But Miss Mary Humphries had been caught by the second part of Julie’s statement. “Why, Julie, are you really afraid to pray in public?” she demanded. “Why! I think that’s just awful.” Her blue eyes stared at Julie out of her wide heavy face. “But what I want to know is, how on earth you knew Brother Seabrook called on you,” Mrs. Wicket pursued. “Mrs. Anderson said you left before the sermon.” Miss Mary, however, was not to be thrown off her line of inquiry. “But, Julie! Not to be able to pray!” she expostulated. “Why, I can’t recollect when I couldn’t pray in public.” “But how did Julie know she was called on?” Mrs. Wicket demanded. “It wasn’t till after the sermon.” “In my family,” Miss Mary went on, heavily, “my father raised us up to pray an’ give in experience whenever called on, and--” “How did you know, Julie?” “And,” Miss Mary drove straight on, not permitting Mrs. Wicket’s excited interruption to throw her off the track, “and none of us ever did think anything of leading in prayer.” “Well, now, that’s just it,” old Mrs. Stover suddenly came to the surface long enough to remark. “Maybe if you’d’ve thought more of it, it wouldn’t’ve come so easy to you. Some folks prays easy, an’ some don’t. Julie, you look real tired. If I was you, I’d go right to bed, an’ I’ll be over in the mornin’ to see how you air.” “Oh, thank you,” Julie said, catching gratefully at the one remark that she dared to answer. “But I’ll not be here in the morning. I’m going to Red River.” This announcement served as an unexpected reprieve. “Oh, you going to Red River?” “You goin’ there in the morning?” Mrs. Wicket and Miss Mary exclaimed together, deflected from their other lines of thought. “Yes, to do some shopping,” Julie nodded. And now she relaxed a little inside herself, aware that the bait of Red River, which was the county town and a shopping centre, would distract the others for at least a little while. “Well, then, I certainly would be obliged if you’d do a little errand for me,” Mrs. Wicket said. “An’ I’ll get you to attend to a little business of mine, too,” Miss Mary added. “I’ll be real glad to do it,” Julie said, eagerly. Mrs. Wicket and Miss Mary proceeded at once to give her minute directions for the carrying out of their desires, and Julie listened, assenting and suggesting with the nervous ingratiation of a little dog, which, having escaped a whipping, hopes to reinstate itself once more in society. Having laid their shopping burdens on Julie’s shoulders, the visitors rose at last to go.