Ann looked blank. "No. But it is. You're likely to get drowned any minute! Not but what I'd risk it if it wasn't for Aunt. I'm far more scared of Aunt than I am of God," she added reflectively.
"Why, Ann! What do you mean?"
"Well, you never can tell about God, but Aunt's a dead sure thing! If she says you'll get a smack for going in the river you'll get it—but God only drowns a few here and there, for examples like."
"Look here!" Callandar paused in his stride and fixed her dark eyes by the sudden seriousness in his own. "You've got the thing all wrong. God doesn't drown people for swimming on Sunday. He isn't that sort at all. He—He—" the unaccustomed teacher of youth faltered hopelessly in his effort to instruct the budding mind, but Ann's eyes were questioning and at their bidding the essential truth of his own childhood came back to him. "God is Love," he declared firmly. "Great Scott! a person would think that we lived in the Dark Ages! Don't you let 'em frighten you, Ann. What are you allowed to do on Sunday anyway?"
"Church," succinctly. "And Sunday-school and church and the 'Pilgrim's
Progress.'"
"Well, that's something. Jolly good book, the 'Pilgrim's Progress'!"
"Yes," dubiously. "If it didn't use such a nawful lot of big words. And if he'd only get on a little faster. He was terrible slow."
"So he was. Well, let us be merry while we can. I'll race you to the orchard gate."
At the gate they paused to regain their lost breath and sense of decorum for, across the orchard, the veranda could be plainly seen with the trim figure of Professor Willits in close proximity to the taller and gaunter outline of Mrs. Sykes. With one of her shy quick gestures, the child slipped her fingers from the doctor's hold and sped away through the trees. Her friendship with Callandar was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to Ann, but she was not of the kind which parades intimacy.
"Patient dead?" asked Willits dryly after they had shaken hands.