However, the weary service was almost over. The prayer ended; the congregation stood up and joined in the final hymn. The dreamer also stood up. Also, he opened his cherubic mouth, and sang. The words he knew not, but he sang without them. His unfamiliar voice surprised Miss Martha Lincoln, a middle-aged maiden just in front of him. Twice a week she gave music lessons in Worcester. Now, involuntarily she looked behind. Her surprise was great when she discovered the performer to be a small boy whose diminutive mouth could hardly open wide enough to put forth the music that was in him. Clearly this courageous singer possessed an ear and a sense of harmony that were a part of himself, and not acquired. At last, the benediction finished, the people came slowly out of the pews into the aisle, and moved toward the open doors. Greetings occurred between people who lived miles apart and seldom met, except on Sundays. The boy stuck close to his father. One of his hands kept a tight grip on Dr. Alton's coat. As the top of his head was not above the waists of people about him he received little attention. Many persons overlooked him. But just before reaching the vestibule he heard a voice close to his ear, on his own level. It said, distinctly, but in a tone too low for the taller people to hear: "How do you do, little stupid?" He turned. There was the girl with the wondrous eyes! But now the eyes glistened with malicious triumph. For an instant he was too surprised, too disconcerted, to grasp the situation. Like a ship that receives a raking broadside from an unexpected quarter and reels beneath the shock, but recovers and prepares for action, so Cyrus Alton pulled himself together, blinked and faced the foe. Then it was that the maiden herself received a shock. For this boy, instead of "sassing back" as she expected, inclined his head and body in a ceremonious bow--as elaborate as the skirts and legs of the surrounding grown-ups permitted, and inquired politely: "Why do you say that?" So surprised was the girl, so startled by this unprecedented, this unheard of politeness in a human boy, that her expression swiftly changed to one of comic dismay. She was dumb. The miracle stupefied her. In their wonderment the beautiful eyes became yet larger and more beautiful. But the lips were speechless. Then, once again she vanished, this time behind her mother's skirt. And that is how the acquaintance began between Cyrus Alton and Ruth Heywood. [Illustration] III UNCLE HECTOR'S VERDICT It so happened a few days later that this acquaintance was renewed. Cyrus, sitting on the doorstep of a house in the village, waited for his father, who was visiting a patient within. Two little girls came along, arm in arm. They stopped in front of him. One of them said: "A new boy." The other said: "Isn't he funny!"