It seemed that their guest did not smoke, and the Squire alone lighted his pipe. Then he joked his wife. “Mother, will you let us stay by the fire here--it's a little chilly outdoors, and those young frogs do take the heart of you with their peeping--if we don't mind your bothering round? Mr. Mandeville wants to hear all about our Leatherwood God.” “He'll hear more about him than he wants to if he listens to all you tell, Matthew,” Mrs. Braile retorted. “Oh, no; oh, no,” the stranger protested, and the Squire laughed. “You wanted to know,” he said, well after the beginning of their talk, “whether there were many of the Little Flock left. Well, some; and to answer your other question, they're as strong in the faith as ever. The dead died in the faith; the living that were young in it in the late eighteen-twenties are old in it now in the first of the fifties. It's rather curious,” the Squire said, with a long sigh of satisfaction in the anomaly, “but after the arrest of Dylks, and his trial and acquittal before this court,” the Squire smiled, “when he came out of the tall timber, and had his scalp mended, and got into a whole suit of Saint Peter's clothes, he didn't find the Little Flock fallen off a great deal. They were a good deal scared, and so was he. That was the worst of the lookout for Dylks; his habit of being afraid; it was about the best thing, too; kept him from playing the _very_ devil. There's no telling how far he might have gone if he hadn't been afraid: I mean, gone in personal mischief.” “Yes,” the stranger assented. “And his failure in all his miracles had no effect on his followers?”