‘Dear me! Why, I hadn’t heard! What is his trouble?’ Pud’s clear brown eyes set themselves on that far distant point that in optics is termed infinity and assumed a sort of trance-like fixity. Had Mr. Tully known the boy a great deal better, the peculiarity of that gaze would have warned him. ‘The doctor,’ replied Pud, almost dreamily, ‘didn’t say.’ ‘Well, well! And which doctor――But, of course, you have Doctor Timmons, don’t you? And so Doctor Timmons didn’t know what the trouble was?’ ‘Well, he didn’t say,’ answered Pud cautiously. ‘And I guess if a doctor knows what’s the matter he’s going to tell, isn’t he, sir?’ ‘Oh, undoubtedly, undoubtedly. Well, let us hope that your father’s illness is not――ah――serious. You say he is up to-day?’ ‘Yes, sir, he got up, but he didn’t go to the office.’ ‘Strange that no one told me,’ marveled the preacher. ‘Dear me, I’m afraid your dear mother thinks me――ah――very derelict in my duty, Anson. Not that I blame her. No, no, by no manner of means. Well, I must certainly call right away.’ Then a frown puckered Mr. Tully’s brow as he produced a big gold watch and peered at it. ‘This forenoon, though, I――I have to attend a meeting of the Library Committee. I had quite forgotten it at the moment. But after dinner――yes, yes, after dinner, most certainly. Will you bear my condolences to your parents, please, and say that I will drop in this afternoon? I simply can’t understand how the――ah――news of your father’s indisposition failed to reach me, Anson. Most extraordinary, is it not, my boy?’ ‘Yes, sir――no, sir――’ ‘Well, well, we must all bear our trials with Christian fortitude, Anson. A beautiful day, is it not?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Yes, a beautiful day in a beautiful season of the year.’ Mr. Tully inspected the sky and the trees and the sloping street, deep in gray dust after a fortnight of rainless June weather, and smiled approvingly. ‘Yes, a beautiful day,’ he murmured. Then, arousing himself with a start, he patted Pud on the shoulder, beamed kindly and strode on with quick, nervous steps. Pud heaved a sigh of relief. Mr. Tully had not called him to task for missing Sunday School. Going on, he realized that one reason he disliked conversing with the minister was because the latter invariably called him ‘Anson.’ Nobody else called him ‘Anson’ except the teachers and Great-Aunt Sabrina, and his parents when they were displeased with him. Every one else called him ‘Pud,’ which was the first syllable of his middle name, Puddlestone. Until he went to school he had been called ‘Anse.’ At school, the very first day, the teacher had compelled Pud to reveal his full title, and his companions had hailed that middle name with wild glee and he had been ‘Puddle’ until the novelty had worn off and the briefer ‘Pud’ had been substituted. Puddlestone was Great-Aunt Sabrina’s name and Pud had been named for her. She lived at Livermore, twenty miles down the river, and, in Pud’s estimation at least, was fabulously wealthy.