Mr. Ellery gazed blankly at her through the rain-streaked dark. This was the most astonishing young person he had met in his twenty-three years of worldly experience.
“Funny!” he repeated. “Well, perhaps it is. Our ideas of fun seem to differ. I—”
“Oh, but it IS so funny. You don't understand. What do you think your congregation would say if they knew you had been to a Come-Outers' meeting and then insisted on seeing a Come-Outer girl home?”
John Ellery swallowed hard. A vision of Captain Elkanah Daniels and the stately Miss Annabel rose before his mind's eye. He hadn't thought of his congregation in connection with this impromptu rescue of a damsel in distress.
“Ha, ha!” he laughed mournfully. “I guess it is rather funny, after all.”
“It certainly is. Now will you leave me and go back to your parsonage?”
“Not unless you take the umbrella.”
“Very well. It is a beautiful evening for a walk, don't you think so? Mr. Ellery, I'm afraid we shan't have you with us in Trumet very long.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, because you're so very, very original. Are your sermons that way, too? Captain Elkanah doesn't like his ministers to be too original.”