They went round the knoll through the trees among the broken pieces of rock scattered over the little eminence. Before they reached the brook the other way a voice hailed them.
“Hallo, Ben! Does your Aunt Betsey know that you’re going about in such company on Sunday?”
“If meeting’s out she knows, or she mistrusts,” said Ben, taking the matter seriously. “We’re going over to the Scott school-house to meeting. Aunt Betsey’ll like that, anyhow.”
They all laughed, for Ben and the Fleming children had long been friends.
“Here’s Clif got home sooner than he expected to, and Jacob, he’s reading a sermon by himself because the minister didn’t come, and so—we came away. This is Clif.”
The smile which had greeted Ben went out of Katie’s eyes, and surprise and a little offence took its place, as she met Clifton’s look. But she laughed merrily when the lad, stepping back, took off his hat and bowed low, as he might have done to any of the fine ladies of B—, where he had been living of late.
But in a little while she grew shy and uncomfortable, and conscious of her bare feet, and moved away. Clifton noticed the change, and said to himself that she was thinking of the mortgage, and of “those avaricious Holts.”
“Your grandfather did not go to meeting, either,” said Ben, anxious to set himself right in Katie’s eyes. “We saw him turning the corner as we went down to the river.”
“Grandfather!” repeated Katie. “I wonder why?”
“I suppose it was because Jacob was going to read the sermon,” said Ben, reddening, and looking at his cousin.