"Go to it!" said Harry Hobbs, under his breath.

Even the minister, who was sitting immediately behind Harry, could not restrain a smile.

"Mr. Chairman," cried Mr. Hayes, indignantly, "I appeal against this interruption. I assert--"

"Where's the treasurer?" said Neil Fraser. "What's the use of this chewin' the rag?"

"Ah! Exactly so," said the chairman, greatly relieved. "Mr.

Boggs--Perhaps Mr. Boggs will enlighten us."

Mr. Boggs arose with ponderous deliberation.

"Mr. Chairman," he said, "in one sense Mr. Hayes is right when he states the arrears to be seven hundred dollars--"

"Five hundred dollars A'm tellin' ye," said Mr. Innes with the first sign of feeling he had shown.

"And Mr. Innes is also right," continued Mr. Boggs, ignoring the interruption, "when he makes the arrears five hundred dollars, the two hundred dollars difference being the quarterly revenue now due."

"Next week," said Mr. Innes, reverting to his wonted calm.

"Exactly so," said the chairman, rubbing his hands amiably; "so that the seven hundred dollars we now owe--"

This was too much even for the imperturbable Mr. Innes.

He arose in his place, moved out into the aisle, advanced toward the platform, and with arm outstretched, exclaimed in wrathful tones:

"Mon, did ye no hear me tellin' ye? I want nae mon to mak' me a le-ear."

At this point Mr. Stewart Duff, who had come to convey his wife home, and had got tired waiting for her outside, entered the church.

"Oh, get on with the business," said Neil Fraser, who, although enjoying the scene, was becoming anxious for his dinner. "The question what's to be done with the five hundred dollars' arrears. I say, let's make it up right here. I am willing to give--"

"No, Mr. Chairman," shouted Mr. Hayes, who was notoriously averse to parting with his money, and was especially fearful of a public subscription.

"There is something more than mere arrears--much more--"

"Ay, there is," emphatically declared Mr. McFettridge, rising straight and stiff. "I'm for plain speakin'. The finances is not the worst about this congregation. The congregation has fallen off. Other churches in this village has good congregations. Why shouldn't we? The truth is, Mr.

Chairman,"--Mr. McFettridge's voice rolled deep and sonorous over the audience--"we want a popular preacher--a preacher that draws--a preacher with some pep."

"Hear! hear!" cried Mr. Boggs. "Pep's what we want. That's it--pep."

"Pep," echoed the chairman. "Exactly so, pep."

"More than that," continued Mr. McFettridge, "we want a minister that's a good mixer--one that stands in with the boys."

"Hear! Hear!" cried Mr. Boggs again.

"A mixer! Exactly!" agreed the chairman. "A mixer!" nodding pleasantly at Mr. Boggs.

"And another thing I will say," continued Mr. McFettridge, "now that I am on my feet. We want a preacher that will stick to his job--that will preach the gospel and not go meddlin' with other matters--with politics and such like."

"Or prohibition," shouted Harry Hobbs from the rear, to the undiluted joy of the youngsters in his vicinity.

The minister shook his head at him.

"Yes, prohibition," answered Mr. McFettridge, facing toward the rear of the church defiantly. "Let him stick to his preaching the gospel; I believe the time has come for a change and I'm prepared to make a motion that we ask our minister to resign, and that motion I now make."

"Second the motion," cried Mr. Boggs promptly.

"You have heard the motion," said the chairman, with business-like promptitude. "Are you ready for the question?"

"Question," said Mr. Hayes, after a few moments' silence, broken by the shuffling of some members in their seats, and by the audible whispering of Mrs. Innes, evidently exhorting her husband to action.

"Then all those in favour of the motion will please--"

Then from behind the organ a little voice piped up, "Does this mean, Mr.

Chairman, that we lose our minister?"

It was Miss Quigg, a lady whose years no gallantry could set below forty, for her appearance indicated that she was long past the bloom of her youth. She was thin, almost to the point of frailness, with sharp, delicately cut features; but the little chin was firm, and a flash of the brown eyes revealed a fiery soul within. Miss Quigg was the milliner and dressmaker of the village, and was herself a walking model of her own exquisite taste in clothes and hats. It was only her failing health that had driven her to abandon a much larger sphere than her present position offered, but even here her fame was such as to draw to her little shop customers from the villages round about for many miles.

"Does this mean, sir, that Mr. Dunbar will leave us?" she repeated.

"Well,--yes, madam--that is, Miss, I suppose, in a way--practically it would amount to that."

"Will you tell me yes or no, please," Miss Quigg's neat little figure was all a-quiver to the tips of her hat plumes.

"Well," said the chairman, squirming under the unpleasant experience of being forced to a definite answer, "I suppose,--yes."

Miss Quigg turned from the squirming and smiling Mr. Pilley in contempt.

"Then," she said, "I say no. And I believe there are many here who would say no--and men, too." The wealth of indignation and contemptuous scorn infused into the word by which the difference in sex of the human species was indicated, made those unhappy individuals glance shamefacedly at each other--"only they are too timid, the creatures! or too indifferent."

Again there was an exchange of furtive glances and smiles and an uneasy shifting of position on the part of "the creatures."

"But if you give them time, Mr. Chairman, I believe they will perhaps get up courage enough to speak."

Miss Quigg sat down in her place behind the organ, disappearing quite from view except for the tips of her plumes, whose rapid and rhythmic vibrations were eloquent of the beating of her gallant little heart.

"Exactly so," said the chairman, in confused but hearty acquiescence.

"Perhaps some one will say something."

Then Mr. Innes, forced to a change of position by the physical discomfort caused by his wife's prodding, rose and said,

"I dinna see the need o' any change. Mr. Dunbar is no a great preacher, but Ah doot he does his best. And the bairns all like him."

Then the congregation had a thrill. In the back seat rose Harry Hobbs.

"I'm near forty years old," he cried, in a high nasal tone that indicated a state of extreme nervous tension, "and I never spoke in meetin' before. I ain't had no use for churches and preachers, and I guess they hadn't no use for me. You folks all know me. I've been in this burg for near eight years, and I was a drinkin', swearin', fightin'

cuss. This preacher came into the barn one day when I was freezin' to death after a big spree. He tuk me home with him and kep' me there for two weeks, settin' up nights with me, too. Let me be," he said impatiently to Barry, who was trying to pull him down to his seat. "I'm agoin' to speak this time if it kills me. Many a time I done him dirt sence then, but he stuck to me, and never quit till he got me turned 'round. I was goin' straight to hell; he says I'm goin' to heaven now."