“And next time I come around the circuit,” said Brother Gurley, gathering Jane’s hand in his before the company, “I’ll bring my wife with me.” They walked away from the campfire, Jane turning her head once or twice to call “Good-night, all,” as if she still clung to every companionable hand. The party watched her an instant in silence. Perhaps some were fanciful enough to see her walking away from the high estate of a doctor’s wife in Lancaster, from the Hanks money, and Jimmy Thompson’s thrift, into the constant change and unfailing hardships of Methodist itinerancy. The dancing motion would disappear from her gait, and she who had tittered irreverently at her good mother’s labors with backsliders at the mourners’ bench would come to feel an interest in such sinners herself. “Dog’d if I thought Jane Davis would ever marry a preacher!” burst out Jimmy Thompson, in sudden and hot disapproval. “Don’t it beat all!” murmured Tabitha Gill. “And her an unconverted woman in the error of her ways! Jane’s too young for a preacher’s wife.” “Jane’s fooled us all,” owned Philip Welchammer heartily. To keep intended nuptials a family secret until a day or a few hours before the appointed time was as much a custom of the country as was prying into and spying out such affairs. Surprising her friends by her wedding was, therefore, adding to Jane’s social successes; but only Dr. Miller could perceive her true reason for assembling her suitors at the last moment. While discarding them all, her hospitable nature clung to their friendship; she wished to tell them in a group the change she contemplated, so that no one could accuse her of superior kindness to another. Her very cruelties were intended mercies. “That’s the way the pretty girls go,” sighed Cousin Tom Randall, seizing hold of Jane’s younger brother: “the preachers get ’em. Come on, Eck; I have to be helped home.” “I don’t see when he courted her,” breathed Dick Hanks, closing his lips after many efforts. “Preachers is chain-lightnin’,” laughed Jimmy Thompson. “He’s been around often enough, and always stoppin’ there.” “To-morrow after preachin’,” said John impressively, as he came forward after hastily covering the jars. “We’re goin’ to have a turkey-dinner, and we want you all to be sure to come. And next time Brother Gurley and Jane makes the circuit, we’ll have the infair at our house, too.” “That’s just like Davises,” exclaimed one of the dispersing group in the midst of their eager promises; “they wouldn’t be satisfied unless they give the weddin’ and the infair both, and invited all quarterly meetin’ to set down to the table. I thought there was doin’s over at their house; but then they’re always bakin’ and fussin’.”