"Yes!" sleepily.
"What'll we do about going to church to-morrow? The telegram might come while we're gone, and then we'd never know what she answered."
"Oh, they'd call up again until they got us. And, anyhow, we'd call them up when we got back and ask if any message had come yet?"
"Oh! Would we?" and Mother Marshall lay down with a sigh of relief, marveling, as she often had, at the superior knowledge in little technical details that men so often displayed. Of course in the real vital things of life women had to be on hand to make things move smoothly, but just a little thing like that, now, that needed a bit of what seemed almost superfluous information, a man always knew; and you wondered how he knew, because nobody ever seemed to have taught him! So at last Mother Marshall slept.
Anxious inquiry of the telephone after church brought forth no telegram. Dinner was a strained and artificial affair, preceded by a wistful but submissive blessing on the meal. Then the couple settled down in their comfortable chairs, one each side of the telephone, and tried to read, but somehow the hours dragged slowly.
"There's that pair of Grandmother Marshall's andirons up in the attic!" said Mother Marshall, looking up suddenly over the top of the Sunday school Times.
"I'll bring them down the first thing in the morning!" said Father, with his finger on a promise in the Psalms. Then there was silence for some time.
Mother Marshall's eyes suddenly lighted on an article headed, "My Class of Boys."
"Seth!" she said, with a beautiful light in her eyes. "You don't suppose maybe she'd be willing to take Stephen's class of boys in Sunday-school when she gets better? I can't bear to see them begin to stay away, and Deacon Grigsby admits he don't know how to manage them."
"Why, sure!" said Father, tenderly. "She'll take it, I've no doubt. She's that kind, I should think. And if she isn't now, Mother, she will be after she's been with you awhile!"