"He said something about it to me, after service last night," answered Louise, who acted as organist at the little Episcopal chapel. "He said he wanted to get his plans all made as soon as he could, so we could go to work on the vestments and begin training, to have the choir ready to sing at Easter. I told him that both the boys sang, but I didn't know what you'd say to it."
"I'm willing," Mr. Everett was beginning, when Mrs. Pennypoker interrupted him.
"Do you mean," she asked with icy distinctness, as she leaned forward over the table to add emphasis to her words, "that you are going to let your sons sing in one of those choirs that march into church with their night-gowns on, and singsong the answers to what the priest says?"
"Why, yes," said Mr. Everett, smiling at his cousin, in the hope of calming her disgust. "Yes; that is, if that's what you call it. The boys both have good voices, and it certainly won't hurt them any, for Mr. Nelson knows how to train them well."
"Humph!" returned Mrs. Pennypoker uncompromisingly. "It's my belief that they'd much better go to hear good old Dr. Hornblower, and let this flummery alone. Your Nelson man is no better than a papist, with his colored windows and his chants and all; and, now he's succeeded in getting his new chapel, there'll be no stopping him."
"Just watch the storm centre," whispered Grant to his brother, as Mrs. Pennypoker ended her remark with an expressive, but ill-advised shake of her head. "It's coming into action fast."
"I am glad you feel satisfied with the doctor," answered Mr. Everett, looking squarely into the face of his irate relative. "He is doubtless a good man; but my wife was a member of Mr. Nelson's church, and her children have always been accustomed to going there, so I think they would better continue. Another thing I started to tell you, Lou," he went on, as he turned to his daughter again, "I hear that, at last, Blue Creek is to have a new doctor. There's a young fellow from one of the Eastern colleges on his way out here to settle. The Fullertons know him, and say he's a brilliant man. It's about time we had somebody, for since old Dr. Meacham died, nobody's dared be ill, for fear they'd die before a doctor could get over from Butte."
"And when this one comes, we're all going to celebrate by being ill; is that what you mean, papa?" Louise asked playfully, as she shook her head at Grant, who was stretching up, to peer curiously at the top of Mrs. Pennypoker's head, where a pale crescent was gradually appearing and waxing wider. "When's he coming?"
"Not for five or six weeks," her father answered; "so you'll have to keep well for a while longer. He's on his way; but he's going to visit some friends in Omaha and Denver, before he gets here."
"Hullo!" exclaimed Ned suddenly.