The priest from New York had, soon after Uncle Phil’s “piece spoken in meetin’,” given up Rocky Point in disgust, and returned to the city, leaving the field clear for another man. That man Uncle Phil was anxiously looking out for, as he said he meant to have things in running order as soon as the house was consecrated.
It was a very pretty little edifice, and did credit to the good taste of Uncle Phil, or his architect, or both. As yet he had no name for it. Neither St. Maude nor St. Edna would do, and St. Philip, which both girls proposed, sounded too egotistical.
“He wasn’t a saint,” he said, “and never should be, perhaps, and they must try again.”
Then he asked, in a kind of indifferent way, the name of the church at Allen’s Hill, where Edna had formerly attended. St. Paul’s suited him better, and he guessed “he’d have it christened after that curis chap who had that thorn in the flesh.”
The next day when alone with Edna, he said to her:
“I kind o’ hoped at one time that you or Maude might be married first in my new church, but she tells me there’s to be great doin’s at Oakwood for her and that girl, George, who, it seems, is to marry Roy, when I’d picked him for you.”
“For me?” and Edna’s cheeks were scarlet. “Roy would never think of me, and, Uncle Phil, I want to tell you I can’t stay there after Miss Burton comes. I made up my mind to that a long time ago.”
“Of course not,” Uncle Phil replied. “One house can’t hold three wimmen, so come back to the old hut as soon as you please; there’s always a place for you here. I shall be down to the weddin’, I s’pose; I promised Maude I would, only you mustn’t try to put gloves on me, nor stick me into a swallow-tail.”
Edna laughingly promised to let him have his own way in dress, and two days after this conversation she said good-by to the old man, and, with Maude, went back to Summerville, where the preparations for the great event had commenced in earnest.