"Oh!" exclaimed Ruth, horrified.
Agnes was really angry. She was an impulsive girl and she could not fail to espouse the cause of anybody whom she considered "put upon." She rose right up when Neale stumbled to his feet.
"Never you mind, Neale!" she whispered, shrilly. "He's a mean old thing! I'm coming, too."
It was a very wrong thing to say, but Agnes never stopped to think how a thing was going to sound when she was angry. The boy, his face aflame, got out through the next pew, which chanced to be empty, and Agnes followed right on behind him before Ruth could pull her back into her seat.
Nobody could have stopped her. She felt that Neale O'Neil was being ill-treated, and whatever else you could say about Aggie Kenway, you could not truthfully say that she was not loyal to her friends.
"Cheap! cheap! cheap!" squeaked the deacon's boots as he went back up one aisle while the boy and girl hurried up the other. It seemed to Neale as though the church was filled with eyes, staring at him.
His red face was a fine contrast for his rainbow-hued hair, but Agnes was as white as chalk.
The minister took up his discourse almost immediately, but it seemed to the culprits making their way to the door as though the silence had held the congregation for an hour! They were glad to get through the baize doors and let them swing together behind them.
Neale clapped his cap on his head, hiding a part of the ruin, but Deacon Abel came out and attacked him hotly:
"What do you mean by such disgraceful actions, boy?" he asked, with quivering voice. "I don't know who you are—you are a stranger to me; but I warn you never to come here and play such jokes again——"