"No, I don't think I'll come down this time." "Well, then will you send an officer?" "No-o--I don't--" "I wish you _would_." "Well, I'll try to send someone." * * * * * Mary was at last too wide awake to think of dozing. This blot on the sweet May Sabbath drove away all thought of day dreams. Poor, miserable human creatures! Poor, long-suffering neighbors, and poor John! "All sorts of people appeal to him in all sorts of cases, and often in cases which do not come within a doctor's province at all--he is guide, counsellor and friend," she thought as she put on her hat and went out for a walk. CHAPTER IX. One Sunday morning at the beginning of August, Mary stood in the church--as it chanced, in the back row--and sang with her next neighbor from the same hymn book, John Newton's good old hymn, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me!" It was the opening hymn and they were in the midst of the third verse. "Thro' many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come"; sang Mary. She did not dream that another danger, toil and snare was approaching her at that instant from the rear and so her clear soprano rang out unfaltering on the next line-- "'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far--" Then a hand was laid upon her shoulder. She turned and started as she saw her husband's face bending to her. What had happened at home? "Wouldn't you like to go to the country?" whispered the doctor. "Why--I don't like to leave church to go," Mary whispered back. "The carriage is right here at the door." The next instant she had taken her parasol from behind the hymn-books in front of her, where she had propped it a few minutes before, with some misgiving lest it fall to the floor during prayer, and just as the congregation sang the last line, "And grace will lead me home," she glided from the church by the side of the doctor, thankful that in the bustle of sitting down the congregation would not notice her departure. They descended the steps, entered the waiting carriage and off they sped. "I feel guilty," said Mary, a little dazed over the swift transfer. The doctor did not reply. In another minute she turned to him with energy. "John, what possessed you to come to _the church_?" "Why, I couldn't get you at home. I drove around there and Mollie said you had gone to church so I just drove there." "You ought to have gone without me." The doctor smiled. "You didn't _have_ to go. But you are better off out here than sitting in the church." The horse switched his tail over the reins and the doctor, failing in his effort to release them, gave vent to a vigorous expletive. "Yes, I certainly do hear some things out here that I wouldn't be apt to hear in there," she said. Then the reins being released and serenity restored, they went on.