MRS. HODDER, housekeeper at the manse, breathed a heavy sigh as she poured the minister’s breakfast coffee. He looked up, as she had known he would; his ear seemed to be sensitive to sighs.
“It’s queer, how things go for some people,” she said. “I can’t get over feeling that a body should have Christian burial, no matter what the circumstances is.”
“Tell me about it,” said Black promptly. Mrs. Hodder was not a talker—he did not think she was a gossip. She had been selected for him by his good friend Mrs. Lockhart, who had had in mind the necessity of finding the minister a housekeeper built on these desirable lines. Mrs. Hodder came as near such lines as seemed humanly possible, though she had her faults. So had the minister, as he was accustomed to remind himself, whenever he discovered a new one in his housekeeper.
So Mrs. Hodder told him, and as he listened a peculiar frown appeared between his eyebrows. The thing she told him was of the sort to touch him to the quick. The moment he had finished his breakfast—which he did in a hurry—he went into the study, closed the door, and called up a certain undertaker, whom—as is the case with the men of Black’s profession—he had come to know almost before he knew the leading men of his church.
“Oh, that’s nothing that need interest you, Mr. Black,” replied the man of gloomy affairs, in the cheerful tone he employed out of working hours. “It’s out in a community where there isn’t any church—folks are dead against the church, at that. Nobody expects any service—there won’t be but a handful there, anyhow. There’s only the girl’s grandmother for relatives—and the thing’s best kept quiet. See?”
“I see. What time are you to leave the house?”
“Ten o’clock. But you——”
“There wouldn’t be any actual objection to my coming, would there, Mr. Munson?”
“Why—I suppose not. They simply don’t expect it—not used to it. And in this case—if you understand——”
“I do understand—and I very much want to come. The trolley runs within two miles, I believe.”