"Thank you for your wise consideration of all the matters contained in my letter," she said.

"You're welcome," he replied.

"Who in the world is this ?" asked Father Tim. A child who appeared to be around three years old was making a beeline toward him with no adult in hot pursuit.

"This is Jonathan Tolson!" said Marjorie Lamb, beaming.

Jonathan fell against Father Tim's legs and clasped them tight, gazing up as if they were old acquaintances.

He squatted and took the youngster's hands in his. "Hey, buddyroe!"

The blond toddler sucked his lower lip and gazed steadily at Father Tim with blue, inquisitive eyes. Then he turned and raced back the way he'd come.

"He just wanted to tell you hello," piped Marjorie, looking pleased as punch.

The message light on their answering machine was blinking.

"Hey," said Dooley. "I hate answerin' machines. I hope you got there OK. I mowed a yard after work and got fifteen dollars. Avis's truck is cool, it came today.

"Well . . ." Deep sigh. "Harley got the hornet nests down." Long pause. "I miss ol' Barnabas. Talk to you later. 'Bye."

Click. Beep.

"I heard there was a terrible storm down there," said Emma. "I hope it didn't blow you in a ditch. You hadn't hardly left town 'til Gene Bolick keeled over and they had to carry him to th' hospital. I called Esther and th' doctor said he's keepin' him awhile for tests."

Crackling sounds, as if Emma had her hand in a potato chip bag.

"I hear that young interim at Lord's Chapel has been passin' out song sheets, they're not even usin' a book, plus they say two or three people lifted up their hands while they were singin', I bet I can guess who." She snorted. "I hear your old choir director's lower lip is stuck out so far he could trip over it."

Emma crunched down on a couple of chips.

"I saw that woman tenant of yours the other day, she was scurryin' along like a mouse, oh, an' I saw Dooley at Avis's, he looks even better than when you're here, so don't worry about a thing."

Chewing and swallowing, followed by slurping through a straw.

"Snickers has ear mites, I hope Barnabas is doin' fine in all those sandspurs, I hope to th' Lord you'll check his paws on a regular basis."

Emma was running her straw around the bottom of the cup and sucking with great expectation, but not finding much. He turned the volume down on the answering machine.

"Oh, by th' way, Harold got a real raise, the first one in a hundred years, I wish th' post office would get its act together. Well, got to run, this is costin' a war pension."

Click. Beep.

"Timothy! Bill Harvey here. How do you like the pounding surf? I know you're going to love every minute with the fine people at St. John's. You'll be just what the doctor ordered. All they're looking for is Rite Two, a sermon that doesn't rock the boat, and a little trek across the bridge to Cap'n Willie's Sunday brunch.

"I'll be there on the eighth to plug you in. Barbara's not coming-the grandkids are here from Connecticut-she sends her regrets. I'll bunk in with Otis Bragg and Marlene, as usual.

"Well, listen, call me if you need me, you hear? And be sure and eat plenty of spot and pompano, they're probably running pretty good right now. But I wouldn't eat anything fried if I were you; broiled is how I like it, better for the heart. Oh, be sure and do right by Otis, now. He and Marlene are mighty generous donors, wouldn't want to lose them, ha ha. Well! Felicitations to your beautiful bride! See you on the eighth."

Click. Beep.

"Let's go find the beach," he said, after returning Dooley's call.

"Now?"

"It's only ten o'clock."

"Nearly everyone in Mitford is sound asleep," said his wife.

"This isn't Mitford." He put his arms around her and drew her close and nuzzled her hair.

"But I'm already in my nightgown."

"Wear it. Nobody's looking."

"And barefoot."

"Perfect," he said.

CHAPTER SIX.

The Long Shining Whitecap Island loosely duplicated the shape of a Christmas stocking with a toe full of nuts and candy.

In the toe, Otis Bragg had stationed an extensive system of gravel, rock, and crushed oyster shell inventories, custom cement facilities, and sprawling hangars of grading and construction equipment.

In the heel, the lighthouse stood comfortably surrounded by a hedge of yaupons, an abandoned corral for wild ponies, and a small museum. The remainder of the island was chiefly comprised of high dunes, white beaches, canals and marshes, maritime forest, and a small village of homes, shops, inns, and restaurants, woven together by narrow lanes. The acreage on which St. John's in the Grove sat was located in the top of the stocking.

Increasingly, Whitecap attracted tourists from as far away as Canada and California, swelling the ranks of island churches every summer. While many churches on the mainland cranked down, the churches on Whitecap cranked up, both in numbers and activities.

Even so, a carefree sense of remoteness insinuated itself almost everywhere.

Sandy lanes wound under the heavy shade of live oaks, past summer cottages with picket fences and pleasantly unkempt yards.

Egrets could be seen standing in the marshes, as poised as garden statuary, their black eyes searching the reedy places from which alligators slithered onto banks and sunned themselves.

Early on, St. John's new interim learned that island culture made Mitford look like a beehive of cosmopolitan activity. Time seemed to pass more slowly on Whitecap, and then, even with a calendar, a watch, a phone, and a fax machine, the days began to blend into one another like watercolors. Wednesday might as easily have been Tuesday or Thursday, had it not been distinguished by the midweek celebration of Holy Eucharist.

Sam Fieldwalker chuckled. "This sort of thing soon passes," he said. "You're still in the honeymoon phase."

Father Tim laughed with his affable senior warden. "It all seems like a holiday, somehow, a vacation!"

"You've been going pretty hard, Father, I wouldn't call your first few weeks here a vacation. Truth is, I recommend you take a day off."

Sam looked at his watch. "Good gracious! Got to run by the Reader and hand in a story on the Fall Fair, then go across with Marion to the eye doctor and take my fax machine to be fixed. Hope I can get back in time for the planning meeting on the fair."

Even on a small, peaceful island, thought the new priest-in-charge, everybody was going at a trot.

"By the way," said Sam, "glad to hear you're working with Reverend Harmon. The Baptists sure do their part to make the fair the biggest event on the island. We raise a lot of money for needy people."

He went with Sam to the office door that led to the churchyard. "Speaking of needy people," said Father Tim, "I've been counseling Janette Tolson."

"Glad to hear it. When Jeff walked out, Janette didn't feel she could go to Father Morgan, because he was friendly with Jeff. She's gone through the worst of this thing with no priest to turn to."

"She's suffering badly, as you know."

"This has come against us all in a hard way. Not to mention how the choir has fallen into disarray."

Recently, their best tenor had stepped forward to direct the choir and, profoundly disliking such a wrinkle, the lead soprano had quit in disgust and was now teaching Sunday School.

"It'll come right." It was what his mother always said of a rotten situation. "The first thing we need to do is stop thinking of it as a performance choir, and be pleased with how well they lead the congregational singing."

Sam nodded. "Good point."

"You know we're auditioning an organist next week."

"I dislike the thought of a paid organist at St. John's. The Lord has always provided us with somebody in the congregation."

"It may be for the best, Sam. No ties to the church, no axe to grind . . . that's how we handled it at Lord's Chapel for the last few years, and it worked."

"Well, brother . . ."-Sam shook his hand-"hold down the fort while we're across. Oh, my goodness! I forgot the banana bread. I'll just run out to the car. Marion wouldn't be pleased if I come home with it still sliding around in the backseat."

Early on, Father Tim had learned that Marion Fieldwalker was right-the parish really did like to spoil their priests.

He and Cynthia had been treated to brunch at Cap'n Willie's every Sunday, and to dinner at Mona's Cafe with the Lambs and Fieldwalkers.

They'd received a bushel of hard crabs and clams from the Braggs, and were regularly inundated with bread still warm from parishioners' ovens, not to mention sacks of snap beans and tomatoes.

For performing a baptism, he'd been given a free-range chicken and a pound of butter from the Duncans' little farm, while a wedding ceremony he conducted under the oaks had swelled the Dove Cottage larders with a honey-baked ham.

Thank goodness he was running three days a week, and Cynthia was riding her Schwinn from the post office to the dry cleaner's to the grocery store. She might have been a tanned schoolgirl, wheeling along with carrot tops poking from the grocery sack in her bike basket.

The light on the answering machine blinked as he came in from a meeting with Stanley Harmon at Whitecap Baptist.

"Hey, this is Puny, how y'all doin'? Ever'thing's goin' jis' great up here, hope it's th' same with you. Th' girls wanted to say hey . . . Sissy, come back this minute, come back and say hey to Miss Cynthia and Ba!"

Sounds of small feet storming up the hall, amid shrieks and laughter.

"And there goes Sassy, oh, mercy! Hold on, y'all, 'scuse me. . . ."

Sounds of Puny chasing the girls into another room of her small house. "No, no! Put that down! Ba and Miss Cynthia are waitin' for you to say hey! Oh, Lord help, I can't believe this, come out from under there, Sissy!

"All right, then, I'll let Sassy say hey. What a good girl your sister is! Come here, Sassy."

Clattering noises along the hallway to the phone.

"Here, now say hey to Ba and Miss Cynthia."

Heavy breathing.

"You wanted to say hey, you cried to say hey . . . now say hey!" spluttered a frustrated Puny.

"Kitty?" said Sassy.

"Sassy, honey, stay right there and talk to Ba while I get Sissy! Sissy! I see what you're doin', get your hands out of th' toilet this minute!"

Bawling from the bathroom. Heavy breathing on the phone. Puny's footsteps hurrying along the hall.

"Did you say hey yet?"

"Dog!" said Sassy.

"Here, f'r pity's sake, give me th' phone. Well, y'all . . ."

Loud wailing. "Want to say hey! Want to say hey!"

"Not 'til you say somethin' else first," commanded Puny.

"Ple-e-ease!!!"

"All right, here's the phone, say hey and get it over with!"

Deep breath. "Hey, Ba!" Giggling.

"Now go find your cookie! Ba, I mean, Father, I saw your tenant yesterday, she was standin' on 'er tiptoes lookin' in your study window on th' hedge side. I guess I scared her half t' death. I wadn't supposed to go to your house yesterday, but I needed to take in your mail an' all. She said she was lookin' for her cat that run off, and just took a little peek in your window to see how nice it was, said she didn't think y'all'd mind. Well, anyway, Joe Joe says t' tell you hey, and Winnie at Sweet Stuff- "Sissy, put th' mop down this minute! Oh, law . . ."

Click. Beep.

The next message was clearly from a dog, who was barking furiously.

"Hush up!" shouted Emma. "Go get your sock!

"I guess you know your phone call meant th' world to poor Esther. I've never seen her like this, practically wringin' her hands, and she's not th' hand-wringin' type, but they still can't find out what's wrong with Gene. They're goin' to run more tests on Monday, you ought to see 'im, he looks bad to me, I hope you're prayin' is all I can say.

"Snickers! Get away from there! Snickers is tryin' to eat th' meat-loaf I just made! Oh, shoot, hold on a minute. . . ."

Growling, huffing, rattling of pots and pans.

"I had to set it on the counter, plus check my beans, I'm havin' string beans and . . . go get your sock and lie down . . . mashed potatoes with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.

"Listen to this. Who just jumped in th' mayor's race against Andrew Gregory? You will not believe it. Three guesses! Call me and tell me who you think it is, OK? You will keel over.

"By th' way, I heard it's not even hot where y'all are, they say it's strange th' way th' weather's so cool at th' beaches this year. Oh, I just remembered you got a big box of somethin' from Florida at th' post office, I think somebody sent you grapefruit, do you want me to ship it down there or haul it home with me? Harold loves grapefruit, it would save payin' postage all th' way to that island you're on.