"If I am not mistaken," said Dr. Lavendar, "it will be a very great surprise to William."
And then he fell into troubled thought; but as he thought his face brightened. It brightened so much that by the time they reached Old Chester he was as joyously excited about the party as was Miss Lydia herself, who made him a thousand confidences about her dress and her presents and the food which would be offered to her guests. His joyousness had not abated when, the next morning, Mrs. Barkley presented herself, breathless, at the Rectory.
"I think," said she, in an awful bass, sitting up very straight and glaring at Dr. Lavendar, "that this is the most terrible thing that ever happened."
"There are worse things," said Dr. Lavendar.
"I know of nothing worse," Mrs. Barkley said, with dreadful composure. "You may. You know what the unregenerate human heart may do. I do not. This is the worst. What will people say? What will Mrs. Dale say? It must be stopped! She ran in this morning and told me in confidence. She came, she said, to know if she could borrow my teaspoons next Thursday week. I said she could, of course; but I suppose I looked puzzled; I couldn't imagine—then she confessed. She said you knew, but no one else. Then, before I came to my senses, she ran out. I came here at once to say that you must stop it."
"In the first place," said Dr. Lavendar, thrusting his hands down into his dressing-gown pockets, "I couldn't stop it. In the second place, I haven't the right to stop it. And in the third place, I wouldn't stop it if I could."
"Dr. Lavendar!"
"I am delighted with the plan. We need gayety in Old Chester; I think we'll get it. I hope she'll have Uncle Davy in, with his fiddle, and we'll have a reel. Mrs. Barkley, will you do me the honor?"
It came over Mrs. Barkley, with a sudden chill, that there was something the matter with Dr. Lavendar.
"I have calculated," said the old minister, chuckling, "that Miss Lydia has in hand, at present, about $1.75 of our $100. This sum I trust she will give to Foreign Missions. The need is great. I shall bring it to her attention."