On this Sunday the gloom was shot with a new and, it seemed, a most legitimate hope. Boys were usually irreligious; the Grainger cousins certainly were so: they had once run away on Sunday morning. She could not, to be sure, build much upon possible analogies of behavior between Gavan and the Graingers; yet the facts of his age and sex were there: normal, youthful manliness might be relied upon. If Gavan wished to remain it seemed perfectly probable that the elders might yield as a matter of course, and as if to a grown-up guest. Gavan was hardly treated as a child by any of them. “You are fond of going to church, I hope, Gavan,” Aunt Rachel said at breakfast. The question had its reproof for Eppie, who, with large eyes, over her porridge, listened for the reply. “Yes, very,” was the doom that fell. Eppie flushed so deeply that Gavan noticed it. “I don’t mind a bit not going if Eppie doesn’t go and would like to have me stay at home with her,” he hastened, with an almost uncanny intuition of her disappointment, to add. Aunt Rachel cast an eye of comprehension upon Eppie’s discomfited visage. “That would be a most inappropriate generosity, my dear Gavan. Eppie comes with us always.” Gavan still looked at Eppie, who, with downcast eyes, ate swiftly. “Now I’ll be bound that she has been wheedling you to get her off, Gavan,” said the general, with genial banter. “She is a little rebel to the bone. She knows that it’s no good to rebel, so she put you up to pleading for her”; and, as Gavan protested, “Indeed, indeed, sir, she didn’t,” he still continued, “Oh, Eppie, you baggage, you! Isn’t that it, eh? Didn’t you hope that you could stay with him if he stayed behind?” “Yes, I did,” Eppie said, without contrition. “She didn’t tell me so,” said Gavan, full of evident sympathy for Eppie’s wounds under this false accusation. She repelled his defense with a curt, “I would have, if it would have done any good.” “Ah, that’s my brave lassie,” laughed the general; but Aunt Rachel ended the unseemly exposure with a decisive, “Be still now, Eppie; we know too well what you feel about this subject. There is nothing brave in such naughtiness.” Gavan said no more; from Eppie’s unmoved expression he guessed that such reproofs did not cut deep. He joined her after breakfast as she stood in the open doorway, looking out at the squandered glories of the day. “Do you dislike going to church so much?” he asked her. The friendly bond of his sympathy at the table would have cheered her heart at another time; it could do no more for her now than make frankness easy and a relief. “I hate it,” she answered. “But why?” “It’s so long--so stupid.” Gavan loitered about before her on the door-step, his hands in his pockets. Evidently he could find no ready comment for her accusation.