Spence. You will find our children very intelligent."

"Very," agreed Desire.

"They all know the Golden Text, I am sure," he continued with that delightful manner which children dumbly hate. "Annie, you may begin."

But Annie refused to avail herself of this privilege. Instead she showed symptoms of tears.

"Come, come!" chided the a.s.sistant still more delightfully. "We mustn't be shy! Bessie, let us hear from you. 'As Moses--'"

"As Moses."

"Very good. Now, Eddie. 'Lifted up.'"

"Lifted up."

"Very good indeed. Mabel, you next. 'The ser-'"

"I'm scared of snakes," said Mabel unexpectedly.

"Well, well! But you are not afraid of snakes in Sunday School."

"I'm s-cared of snakes anywhere!" wailed Mabel.

"Oh, there is the first bell--excuse me." The relief of the a.s.sistant was a joyful thing. "That means that you have three minutes more, Mrs.

Spence. We usually utilize these last moments for driving home the main thought of the lesson. Very important, of course, to leave some concrete idea--sorry, I must hurry."

Desire felt that she must hurry, too. She hadn't even time to wonder what a concrete idea might be. One can't wonder about anything in three minutes.

"Children," she began. "We haven't learned much about Moses. But the main idea of this lesson is that he was a very good man and a great patriot. He had been brought up in a King's palace, yet when the time came for him to choose, he left the beautiful home of the mother who had adopted him and went to his own people. His Own People," she repeated slowly. "Do you understand that?" The cla.s.s sat stolidly silent. Desire's eye rested again upon the little girl with the prim mouth.

"Ma says 'dopting anyone's a terrible risk," said the prim one. "Like as not they'll never say thank yuh." ...

CHAPTER XXIII

"And that," said Desire later in the day as she related her experiences to the professor, "that was the idea with which I left them! I shan't have to teach again, shall I, Benis?"

Her husband smiled. "No. I should think more would be a superfluity."

"They'll say I'm a heathen. I know they will. You don't realize how serious it is. Think how your prestige will suffer."

"It has suffered already. Only yesterday Mrs. Walkem, the laundress, told Aunt that your--er--peculiarities were a judgment on me for 'tryin' to find out them things in folkses minds which G.o.d has hid away a-purpose.'"

"But I'm in earnest, Benis--more or less."

"Let it be less, then. My dear girl, you don't really think that Bainbridge disturbs me?"

"N-no. But it disturbs me. A little. I am so different from all these people, your friends. And being different is rather--lonely."

"It is," he agreed. "But it is also stimulating."

"I used to think," she went on, following her own thought, "that I was different because my life was different. I thought that if I could ever live with people, just as we live here, with everything normal and everyday, the strangeness would drop away. But it hasn't. I am still outside."

"Everyone is, though you are young to realize it. Our social life is very deceiving. Most of us wake up some day to find ourselves alone in a desert."

Desire swung the hammock gently with the tip of her shoe. "Is not one ever a part of a whole?"

"Socially, yes. Spiritually--I doubt it. It is some-thing which you will have to decide for yourself."

"I don't want to be alone," said Desire rebelliously. "It frightens me.

I want to have a place. I want to fit in. But here, it seems as if I had come too late. Every-one is fitted in already. There isn't a tiny corner left."

Spence's grey eyes looked at her with a curious light in their depths.

"Wait," he said. "You haven't found your corner yet. When you do, the rest won't matter."

"But people do not want me. I had a horrid dream last night. I was wandering all through Bainbridge and all the doors were open so that I might go in anywhere. I was glad--at first. But I soon saw that my freedom did not mean anything. No one saw me when I entered or cared when I went away. I spoke to them and they did not answer. Then I knew that I was just a ghost."

"I'm another," said a cheerful voice behind them. "All my 'too, too solid flesh' is melting rapidly. Only ice-cream can save me now!" Using his straw hat vigorously as a fan Dr. Rogers dropped limply into an empty chair. "Tell you a secret," he went on confidentially. "I had two invitations to Sunday supper but neither included ice-cream. So I came on here."

"Very kind, I'm sure," murmured Benis.

"How did you guess?" began Desire, and then she dimpled. "Oh, of course,--Benis wasn't in church."

"How did he know that?" asked Benis sharply. "He wasn't there, was he?"

The doctor looked conscious. Desire laughed. "His presence did seem to create a mild sensation," she admitted.

"Well, you see," he explained, "in the summer I am often very busy--"

"In the cellar," murmured Benis.

"But no one happened to need me today and, besides, my freezer is broken. This, combined with--"

"An added attraction," sotto voce from the professor.

"Oh, well--I went, anyway."

"I saw you there," said Desire, ignoring their banter. "I thought you might have gone for the sermon. The subject was one of your specialties, wasn't it?"

The doctor twirled his hat.

"Better tell him what the subject was," suggested Benis unkindly.

"Didn't you listen?" Desire's inquiring eyebrows lifted. "That's one of the things I don't understand about people here. Church and church affairs seem to play such an important part in Bainbridge. Nearly everyone goes to some church. But no one seems at all disturbed about what they hear there. Is it because they believe all that the minister says, or because they don't believe any of it?"

Her hearers exchanged an alarmed glance.