And it was an hour or two later that the old red sun had reluctantly departed across the west meadows, just as a soft lady moon rose languidly over Providence Nob. Providence suppers had all been served, the day's news discussed with the men folk, jocularly eager to get the drippings of excitement from the afternoon infair, and the Road toddlers put to bed, when the soft-toned Meeting-house bell droned out its call for the weekly prayer meeting. Very soon the Road was in a gentle hum of conversation as the congregation issued from their house doors and wended their way slowly toward the little church, which, back from the Road in an old cedar glade, brooded over its peaceful yard of graves. The men had all donned their coats and exchanged field hats for stiff, uncomfortable, straight-brimmed straw, and their wives still wore the Sewing Circle gala attire. The older children walked decorously along, each group in wake of the heads of their own family, though Buck Peavey had managed to annex himself to the Hoover household. "Well, I don't know just what to do with you all," said Mother Mayberry, as she came out on the front porch, sedately bonneted, with her Bible and hymn-book under her arm and fortified with a huge palm-leaf fan. "It's my duty to make you both come with Cindy and me to prayer meeting, but I don't hold with a body using they own duty as a stick to fray out other folks with. I reckon I'll have to let you two just set here on the steps and see if you can outshine the moon in your talk, which you can't, but think you can." "Oh, we'll come with you! I was just going to get my hat," exclaimed the singer lady as she rose from the steps upon which Doctor Tom kept his seat and puffed a ring of his cigar smoke at his mother daringly. "No, honey-bird, you've had a long day since your sun-up breakfast and I'll excuse you. I'd LET Tom Mayberry go only I have to make him stay to keep care of you. Put that lace fascination around your throat if a breeze blows up! Tom, try to make out, with Elinory's help, to bring a fresh bucket of water from the spring for the night. Good-by, both of you; I'm a-going to bring you a blessing!" "Yourself, mother," called the Doctor after her. "Honey-fuzzle," called Mother back from the gate. "Better keep it, son, you'll need it some day." "Was there ever, ever anybody just like her?" asked Miss Wingate, as she sank back on the step beside the Doctor. "I think not," he answered with a hint of tenderness in his voice; "but then, really, Mother is one of a type. A type one has to get across a continent from Harpeth Hills to appreciate. She's the result of the men and women who blazed the wilderness trail into Tennessee, and she has Huguenot puritanism contending with cavalier graces of spirit in her nature."