This rather took me back, and I stammered a feeble protest, but he did not heed me. Turning to Mary, he went on: "And you, Mary Warden, I s'pose at such times you are 'Miss.' What wanity! What wanity! Politeness, they calls it. Politeness? Well, in the great eternity, up above, where they speaks from the heart, you'll be just Mark and just Mary. But down yander--yander, mind ye--the folks will probably set more store by titles." The old preacher was pointing solemnly in the direction of the cellar. There was a long pause, an interval of heavy silence. Then from Mary in the darkness came, "Well, Uncle, let us hope that when we reach that great eternity, Mark and I will be good enough friends to lay aside such vanities." "Right!" cried Luther, smiling again, and speaking real heartily. "Right," said I; "and we'll begin eternity to-day, won't we, Mary?" "We will," said she. And in my heart I blessed Luther Warden. Guilelessly, the old man, in a few words, had swept away the barrier Mary and I had raised between us. He had added years to our friendship. So had he stopped there it would have been wonderfully well; but he had to go floundering innocently on. He was laughing softly. "Do you know, Mark," he said, rubbing his spectacles nervously, "she made me jealous of you when she talked that way. I thought she'd set her cap for you, I did. Whenever a man and woman gits polite, whenever they has to bow and scrape that way, a-misterin' and a-missin' one another, they're hiding somethin'; they ain't actin' open. So I was beginnin' to think mebbe she wanted to marry you and----" "Go on reading--please read to us," pleaded Mary. "Yes, do read to us," I echoed, for the position was a new one to me, and at best I am awkward and slow-witted where women are concerned. I could not adroitly turn the old man's wandering speculation into a general laugh as Weston would have done. My best was to break in rudely. "Well--if I must," Luther said, opening the great book across his knees. A long silence followed. I heard the solemn ticking of the clock on the mantel behind me; I heard Mary laughing softly in her retreat beyond the table; I heard Luther, now bending over his book, mumbling to himself a few words of the text.