"Sh'u'dn't be s'prised," said Old Man Bogle, rolling his eyes, "if she was one of them actoresses. Venture to say she's filled with worldly wisdom, that gal, and that sin and cuttin' up different ways hain't nothin' strange nor unaccustomed to her." "While I was a-drinkin' down her coffee out of that measly leetle cup," said the deacon, "she was that brazen! Acted like she'd took a fancy to me," he said, with a sprucing back of his old shoulders. "Got all the wiles of that there woman that danced off the head of John the Baptist," said the elder, grimly. "So she dasted even to tempt a deacon of the church." "She didn't tempt me none," snapped the deacon, "but I lay she was willin'." "I'll venture," said Old Man Bogle, with a light in his rheumy eyes, "that she hain't no stranger to wearin' _tights._" "Shame!" said the elder and the deacon, in a breath. And then, from the deacon, in a tone which might have been a reflection of lofty satisfaction in a virtue, or which might have been something quite different, "I've read of them there tights, Elder, but I kin say with a clear conscience that I hain't never witnessed a pair of 'em." "My nevvy took me to a show in Boston wunst," said Old Man Bogle, tentatively, but he was silenced immediately and sternly. "How kin a man combat evil," he demanded, "if he hain't familiar with the wiles of it?" "He kin set his face to the right," said the elder, "and tread the path." "You wouldn't b'lieve the things I seen in that show," said Bogle, waggling his head. "Don't intend to be called on to b'lieve 'em," said the deacon. "Look.... Comin' acrost the bridge. There's Locker's boy and that there Wife-ette, and him lookin' like he'd enjoy divin' down her throat." "Poor Jason," said the elder, "he's reapin' the whirlwind." "Kin he be blind?" "Somebody ought to take Jason off to one side and give him warnin'." The deacon considered, puckering his thin lips and cocking a hard old eye. "'Tain't fer us to meddle," he said, righteously. "They's a divine plan in ever'thing, and we hain't able to see what's behind all this here. We'll jest set and wait the outcome." That is what all Coldriver did: it sat and awaited the outcome with ill-restrained enthusiasm, and while it waited it talked. No word or gesture or movement of young Homer Locker and Yvette Hinchbrooke went undiscussed. Nobody in town was unaware of Homer's infatuation for the coffee demonstrator--with the one exception of Homer's father, who was too busy waiting upon the unaccustomed rush of trade to notice anything else.