“They could make a nice little coop for him by putting hinges on the floor of the pipe organ platform and making a lid of it,” remarked Anna lightly. She had decided on the way home that she would not mention her visit to the parsonage to anyone. She would fulfill her promise, clean the little marble lamb and then forget all about it and about Mrs. Langley and go back to thinking of Mr. Langley as if he were a bachelor. She would make no further ill-advised efforts to bring back his youthfulness; she would be thankful if she hadn’t added ten years to his age. If he didn’t appear to-morrow in the pulpit with snow-white hair she would thank her lucky stars and never meddle with his affairs again. “I forgot there’s a shop on the place,--it went with the old house that was torn down,” Miss Penny remarked and went on to try to fit the coachman and at least one footman in there, though she could not recollect whether there was a second story or loft or not. And Anna listened absently and thought of Mrs. Langley. Fortunately the third Saturday was also fair. Anna set out early with a basket that might have been intended for autumn wild flowers but really contained cloths, a cake of sand soap, a bottle of ammonia and a tiny vial containing acid. As she followed the winding foot-path leading up the hill, and all the while she was working on the stone with patient skilful fingers, she seemed to hear over and over in her mind, she seemed to scrub to the rhythm of the warning _Let sleeping dogs lie, Let sleeping dogs lie_. Mr. Langley wouldn’t have thanked her for arousing that old woman to life,--but fortunately she _hadn’t_ done any such thing. It was only temporary--a flare-up of interest that would die down as soon as she should be satisfied concerning the stone. She would report her success--for she was succeeding--on her way home and would thereafter leave her in the condition in which she had found her and wherein she seemed perfectly content. When she had done, the little image was so white and sweet and appealing that Anna was loth to leave it. And when she bent to kiss the meek little head in long farewell she couldn’t help thinking pityingly of Mrs. Langley. Poor thing! Poor forlorn creature! If only someone had gotten at her earlier before she had become a petrified mummy! It was too late now, but Anna wished with all her heart she could see the little lamb in its new freshness. She was sorry for her, more than sorry. Nevertheless as she descended the hill the girl simply could not face the thought of that darkened, musty room with the wild eyes glaring through the dimness. She decided to write a note and took a bypath which avoided the parsonage. That night she wrote a note which her brother Frank delivered after Sunday school next day: