“Was you feelin’ bad, honey?” old Mrs. Stover asked. She was a tired old woman whose eighty years found it hard to keep up with her niece’s forty-five energetic ones, but she was afraid to be left alone and so was forced to trail feebly in the other’s wake. She gasped now as she sank upon the sofa, her mouth open and tremulous, although she tried every now and again to shut it. But uncertain and dim as her eyes were, they were the only ones that held any comfort for Julie. “Was you sick?” she repeated.
But Mrs. Wicket, who never paid any attention to what her aunt said, cut her short and demanded again, “What made you slip out of church like that, Julie?”
“I—I felt kind of funny,” Julie parried, her cheeks turning red.
“Mrs. Anderson said you stole out like that because you were afraid Brother Seabrook would call on you to pray,” Miss Humphries announced heavily.
“Mrs. Anderson’s right hot with you, Julie, for givin’ her the slip like that,” Mrs. Wicket stated.
Julie said nothing. She sat with tightly folded hands on her knees and forced herself to look straight at first one inquisitor and then the other, with what might appear to be an air of composure, although the eyes seemed to bore into her soul, and to meet them squarely caused her almost a physical discomfort.
“Were you afraid he was going to call on you to pray, Julie?” Mrs. Wicket repeated all over again.
“Well—well, he did,—” Julie blundered—and knew at once that she was lost. “That is—I—I was afraid he might,” she added, frightened into the truth.
Mrs. Wicket’s eyes snapped wide open. “Why, Julie,” she cried. “Why, how on earth did you know he called on you?”
But Miss Mary Humphries had been caught by the second part of Julie’s statement.