While Jinny was thus pursuing omniscience and equipping herself to meet the masterful young man, and while the young man in question was adding the mastery of the horn to his conquests, their roads failed to cross. Jinny went to chapel the Sunday following the thunderstorm, but Will was too alarmed by the communal expectation of public autobiography to venture there again, and his parents were only too glad to ignore his home-staying and to resume their private Christa-peculiar-delphian service, being sufficiently fortified by his preoccupation with the Bible. What had driven Will to the Book again was the outrageous appearance on Saturday night of Uncle Lilliwhyte as parcel-bearer. Recovering from his relief that the parcel did not contain snakes, but the conventional household stores, Will found himself angry on his mother’s behalf. What right had Jinny to foist such a fusty ragamuffin upon them, the gay strings of whose rotting beaver only accentuated his griminess? Jinny must know that his mother ranked uncleanliness next to ungodliness. And Uncle Lilliwhyte would be a fixture too, unless violently shaken off—he was Jinny’s neighbour; as natural a go-between as Will’s own neighbour, Master Peartree. He had already bribed off the shepherd: must he be blackmailed by both? And so, while Essex was at prayer, Will was concocting a furious Oriental epistle, demanding a clean envoy, if Jinny was too lazy to come herself. This was not so difficult to demand, though laziness seemed as unknown to the Hebrews as gloves. He had dallied, indeed, with his original idea of fetching the household parcels from Chipstone himself, but somehow he could not bring himself to so complete a severance of relations with Jinny, especially as after the appearance of Uncle Lilliwhyte in the new rôle of goods-deliverer, his mother had surprisingly suggested that to spare Methusalem’s legs, the old nondescript might always in future bring the weekly parcel for a penny or two. Will had put this suggestion emphatically aside—it would mean exposing his mother to a contact she detested—but he wound up his letter to Jinny by threatening to become his own carrier unless the service was conducted with propriety. Nip duly returned that same Sunday afternoon with the answer that if he would send his esteemed order in writing, Mr. Daniel Quarles would have pleasure in executing his commission through a scrupulously scoured ambassador. Will started replying instantly that it was not _his_ order: let her mark that he was not the householder, merely the “scribe.” To write out the order, however, gave him unexpected pause. Who could have realized that “parrafin,” “sope” and “shuggar” were alike unenjoyed by the heathen Jews? A pity that Frog Farm was itself so “flowing with milk and honey”: with what confidence he could have drawn on the resources of Palestine! True, one might dodge—lamps and oil were abundant enough in Judæa, and