John remembered the buttonhook on his key ring, and after a few moments of vigorous attack with that humble instrument the bolt shot accommodatingly to one side and the door swung open. "Thank you so much!" exclaimed the blue eyes, though the red lips of pliant sixteen said never a word, but framed themselves in a very pretty smile. John acknowledged the smile with one of his broadest. At the same time, he reflected that Miss Helen’s failure to regard as seriously unusual either the barred door or its violent opening was significant of the state to which affairs in the little church had come; and it was with a grim sense of duty well performed that the big man followed the trooping children into the chapel and looked about him. The building was small, yet somehow it appeared larger inside than out. The utmost simplicity marked its furnishings. The seats were divided by two aisles into a central block of sittings and two side blocks. The pulpit was a mere elevated platform at one side, flanked by lower platforms, one of which supported a cabinet organ. The dull red carpet upon the floor was dreary looking; but the walls and ceilings were neatly white, giving a suggestion of lightness and cheer quite out of harmony with the circumstances under which John had entered it. The twenty or more children massed themselves, as if by habit, upon the front seats, and presently, with Helen at the organ, Hampstead had them singing lustily one song after another, while the size of the audience increased by occasional stragglers until, during the fourth song, two women appeared, each rather breathless, and one with unmistakable evidences of having got hurriedly into her clothes. John felt the eyes of the women upon him suspiciously, and noticed that neither spoke to the other, and that they took seats on opposite sides of the church. At the end of the song, he walked over to the older of the two ladies, who somehow had the look of a wife and mother in Israel, and said: "My name’s Hampstead,—First Church, Los Angeles." "I’m Sister Nelson," replied the lady, a trifle stiffly. "I teach a class of boys. But I thought the church was closed till I heard the organ. Are you a minister?" "Me? No!" And John smiled at the thought, but he also smiled engagingly. Mrs. Nelson instantly liked and accepted him and allowed her stiffness to melt somewhat. "I just happened in," John explained, as he turned to cross toward the young lady on the other side, who appeared, he thought, to eye him rather more suspiciously after such cordial exchange with Mrs. Nelson. "My name’s Hampstead," he began. "First Church, Los Angeles. I just happened in."