This phase of the matter was a relief to her mother. Mrs. Fraser was a person to whom the world and everything in it was one series of ever-recurring disaster. She was a doleful body, taking pleasure only in funerals and the laying out of the dead. With her peculiar taste for sorrow and distress, she had come to be self-appointed nurse to the whole neighbourhood. She was always due at the house of affliction and, with her kindly heart and a certain skill in nursing, she proved a sort of melancholy blessing. Her predilection for disaster caused her to be regarded as a bird of ill-omen, for where Mrs. Fraser was, there would calamities be gathered together, and to see her issue from the big gate on the brow of the south hill with her ominous-looking black bag was sufficient to raise apprehension in every heart. Indeed, Mrs. Duffy, who lived nearly opposite the Frasers and who regarded the village nurse with something akin to superstitious fear, would throw up her hands at the sight of the herald of misfortune passing the door and exclaim, "God bless me sowl, who's dead now?" So if Mrs. Fraser was willing to look hopefully on the actions of the new minister, the rest of the congregation might feel themselves secure. But he was not long in showing that he could be quite as energetic in his church affairs as in playing "Dan Tucker." He plunged into the work with a vim and ardour which commanded the admiration of a thrifty and hard-working people. The young folk were no longer the drones in the hive; he had not been among them a month before he had stirred them all up to an activity and interest in church affairs they had never dreamed of before. He organised a Young People's Society of Christian Endeavour and, with the help of Mr. Watson, a Young Men's Christian Association. He joined the Sons of Temperance and infused new life into that organisation. He even went so far as to get the older women out of their homes and before they knew what they were doing they had formed a Ladies' Aid Society and were making plans to carpet and decorate the church. Miss Cotton was the president of this latter organisation and worked up the interest to such a pitch that even Mrs. Neil More went to one of the meetings, and Archie set fire to the house while she was absent, probably feeling that as the established order of the universe had been completely overturned, the total destruction of all material things should naturally follow. The Methodists were incited to emulation by all this activity and Sim Basketful started an Epworth League. Then Mr. Egerton, in his free-hearted way, proposed that the two societies join and hold alternate meetings in the two churches, a suggestion which met with hearty approval and raised the young minister to the status of a saint in the eyes of Mr. Ansdell.