CHAPTER IV.
The next day dawned with pale rain-bleached skies and fresh sweet odours of reanimated vegetation, but it dawned heavily for Sidney Martin. During the drive home from the church the evening before they had all been somewhat silent.
“Are you studyin’ for the ministry?” old Mr. Lansing had asked.
“No—oh no,” said Sidney, flushing unseen in the dark.
“It seems like you had a call,” said old Lansing, wishing he had not said quite so positively at the church that his visitor was qualifying for the service of God, and certainly from Mr. Lansing’s point of view he was justified in his assertion.
Young men in delicate health who could pray as Sidney Martin had prayed seemed to be the real ministerial material.
“Wouldn’t you like to be the minister?” asked Vashti.
People in Dole usually employed the definite article in referring to men of the cloth. To the Dole mind it smacked of irreverence to say “a” minister, as if there were herds of them as there is of common clay.
There was a soupçon of surprise in Vashti’s tones. How quickly the acid of deception permeates the fabric of thought!