"That won't be necessary. She will stand before me with folded hands when her time comes," answered Mr. Goodloe, after he had laughed as heartily as anybody else at Billy's threat. "The greatest difficulty will be in persuading her to allow me to conduct my own services." "But what did you put off the dedication date for?" demanded Letitia, with the hurry over the altar cloth still rankling. "I put off the dedication of the chapel until all of the people for whom I cared deeply, whose cooperation with me is positively necessary, should be ready to come and help me in the services. When that time comes I will have the dedication. It may be a year and it may be a--day," the parson answered with cool directness. "If you mean Charlotte, the offer I made for young Charlotte holds good," said Billy with positive glee. "If you want her I'll rope her and drag her in and the rest of you can bid for who holds her down while being branded." "And my answer to your generous offer, Billy Harvey, is--" Mr. Goodloe paused and looked at me, and Jessie giggled with nervousness--"the same that I made to your offer about the constraining of young Charlotte." "Still it would be great sport to see both the Charlottes--" Billy was saying, when a servant brought a note on his tray and handed it to Mr. Goodloe, who glanced at it and then hurriedly opened and read it. "I am sorry, Mrs. Morgan, but will you let me answer this summons?" he asked, and there was the regret in his rich voice of a great boy at being snatched from a feast. "I am so hungry," he added with a laugh. "Come back later. I'll save some of everything for you," said Nell pleadingly. "I will if I can," he answered. There was an excited smoulder in the stars under the dull gold that made me restless and my eyes sought and claimed his for a second in which a quick flash of the jeweled tenderness of comprehension was flashed into my depths. "Good-bye, everybody," he said, and in a second was out of the dining room and we could hear him running down the steps. "Oh, dear, if he just wasn't a preacher," sighed Harriet. "I suppose somebody in the Settlement is dead or borned or drunk, and he has to go and see about it. I wish--"