“Oh, ho! So she’s the one, is she? Now that reminds me, mebbe I can guess the cute of that captain’s partiality. That girl’s been kind of lookin’ after your pa and ma, and that same milishy captain’s been kind of lookin’ after the girl. She got him to let her folks go to Springfield.”
“But that’s the wrong way.”
“Well, now, I don’t want to spleen, but I never did believe Vince Corson was anything more’n a hickory Saint—and there’s been a lot of talk—but you get yours from the girl. If I ain’t been misled, she’s got some ready for you.”
“Bishop, will there be a way for us to get into the temple, for her to be sealed to me? I’ve looked forward to that, you know. It would be hard to miss it.”
“The mob’s got the temple, even if you got the girl. There’s a verse writ in charcoal on the portal:—
“‘Large house, tall steeple,
Silly priests, deluded people.’
“That’s how it is for the temple, and the mob’s bunked there. But the girl may have changed her mind, too.”
The young man’s expression became wistful and gentle, yet serenely sure.
“I guess you never knew Prudence at all well,” he said. “But come, can’t we go to them? Isn’t Phin Daggin’s house near?”
“You may git there all right. But I don’t want my part taken out of the tree of life jest yet. I ain’t aimin’ to show myself none. Hark!”