"He'll never do that," said Lester. "He's in clover now, and for the first time in his life, and the more of an ass he is the more he'll like clover. He's paying attention to the lot. He'll never settle down to one. It's all up with us—unless he bankrupts himself."
"He won't," observed Harry Burnham. "Conscious rectitude won't do anything like that. I'm going to New York to call on an old flame, and I advise the rest of you to do the same."
"Well, I don't know but what you are right," said I, "but Araminta shall have one more chance. I'm going to church to-morrow. It's Easter Sunday, and I'll offer to escort her home. If she says 'yes,' all right. If she doesn't, I'm lost to her forever."
"Good scheme," quoth the others. "We're with you."
And that is what we all did. The girls were all there, resplendent in new bonnets and toggery of other sorts, and the smirking Wilkins was there too. He passed the plate after the sermon, and his rectitude shone out oleaginously on every line of his face. It was as much as I could do to keep from tripping him up in the aisle, and sending him and the contribution-plate sprawling. I almost did it when I imagined his feelings as the nickels rattled down through the register into the furnace below, but I restrained myself—and the killing glances he threw into those glass eyes of his, whenever he happened to hold the plate before one of those Dumfries girls! It was sickening, and I came near to flying before the close of the service. The others had the same sensations and temptations, and it is a wonder that Wilkins did not meet with some dreadful humiliation before he got the collection back into the chancel. It was a terrible strain on us, and his horrid unconsciousness that he was anything but perfect, and that the rest of us were anything more than so many paving stones to be walked on, was aggravating to a degree. Nothing unusual happened, however, and the service came to an end, and with it came to us all another surprise, but this time the surprise gave Wilkins a pain, and I had a front seat when the blow was dealt.
It had occurred to the immaculate rival of all the manhood of Dumfries Corners that he would honor Araminta with his society on the way home from church, and he and I reached her side after service at one and the same moment.
"May I have the pleasure of seeing you home?" said Wilkins, twirling his mustache with a "resist me if you can" smile on his lips.
"Don't let me interfere," said I, dryly, and was about to turn away.
"Thank you, Mr. Wilkins," replied Araminta, "but Mr. Smithers has already asked me."
It was a beautiful, lovely, sweet lie. I hadn't done anything of the sort, but I'd meant to, of course, and perhaps Araminta had become a mind reader. Wilkins got a little flushy around his cheek-bones, and posted off to Fiametta, but she and Burnham were already en route and apparently reconciled. So it went with all. Wilkins was left. Even my sister, who, lacking Wilkins, would have to walk home with the minister's wife, declined, and the fall of the great man was complete. Mary Brown was the only one remaining in the field, and when he fled to her she said she wasn't going home.