This, as Desire knew, was perfectly legitimate. No ice-cream of any kind could be bought in Bainbridge on Sunday. Therefore a certain proportion of the population had to descend into its cellars and make it. It was even possible to tell, if one were curious, how many families were going to have ice-cream for dinner by counting the empty seats at morning service. Nearly all of the more prominent families owned freezers while many of those who were freezerless did not go to church, anyway. From which it would seem that, in Bainbridge at least, the righteous had prospered.
On this hot morning, therefore, Desire collected Mr. McClintock's belief alone. It was an especially puzzling one, having to do with the origin and meaning of pain and founded upon the text, "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth."
"There is a tendency among modern translators," began Mr. McClintock, "a tendency which I deplore, to render the word 'chasteneth' as 'teacheth or directeth.' This rendering, in my opinion, is regrettably lax. We will therefore confine our attention to the older version. It is my belief that...."
Desire listened attentively to a lengthy and blood-curdling exposition of this belief and was still in the daze which followed the hearty singing of the doxology on top of it when the assistant Sunday School Superintendent asked her to take a class. He was a very hot assistant and a very hurried one. Even while he spoke to Desire his eye wandered past her to some of his flock who were escaping by the church door.
"Do take a class, Mrs. Spence," he urged.
"Do you mean teach one?" asked Desire. "I'm sorry, but I don't know how."
"Beg pardon? Oh, but of course you do. It is only for today. We are so short. You will do splendidly, I'm sure. They are very little girls and it's in the Old Testament."
"But I don't—"
"Oh, that will be quite all right. It's Moses. Quite easy."
"I have never—"