"I hope your mother will get on with me, Abel." "She sets great store by you now. You're pious, and she likes that even though you do go to the Episcopal church. I heard her say yesterday that it was a rare thing to see a girl find as much comfort in her religion as you do." "You'll never want to come between me and my church work, will you, Abel? I do most of the Foreign Mission work, you know, an' I teach in Sunday school and I visit the sick every Friday." "Come between? Why, it makes me proud of you! When I asked Mr. Mullen about marrying us, he said: 'She's been as good as a right hand to me ever since I came here, Revercomb.'" "Tell me over again. What were his words exactly?" "'She's been as good as a right hand to me, Revercomb,' that was what he said, and he added, 'She's the salt of the earth, that's the only way to describe her.' And now, goodbye, Judy, I must be going back to work." Without glancing round, he went at his rapid stride down the narrow walk to the whitewashed gate, which hung loose on broken hinges. In the road he came face to face with Jonathan Gay, who was riding leisurely in the direction of Jordan's Journey. "How are you, Revercomb? All well?" "Yes, all well, thank you." Turning in his tracks, he gazed thoughtfully after the rider for a moment. "I wonder why he came out of his way instead of keeping to the turnpike?" he thought, and a minute later, "that's the third time he's come back since the family left Jordan's Journey." CHAPTER II THE DESIRE OF THE MOTH At the gate before the Revercombs' house Blossom was standing in a dress of vivid blue. "Are you going to a party?" Abel inquired as he reached her, and she answered impatiently: "I promised to wear this dress over to Judy's, so that she could see how it is trimmed." "Does she want a blue one?" he asked. It seemed to him little short of ludicrous that Judy should buy a new dress because she was going to be married to him; but in the presence of a custom so firmly entrenched behind the traditions of respectability, he knew that protest would be useless. Judy would check out her unromantic person in wedding finery because finery was customary on such occasions. "Of course we couldn't dress just alike, Abel," replied Blossom. His question had seemed foolish to her and her usual soft solemnity was ruffled by a passing irritation. "Judy's frock will be green, but she wants bretelles like these on it." "Bretelles?" he repeated as incredulously as if he had possessed any but the vaguest idea of the article the word described. "Why didn't she wait until she was married, and then I'd have bought them for her," he added. "Of course she wants her wedding clothes--all girls do," said Blossom, invoking tradition. "Are you coming in now. We're having dinner a little earlier."