“Dying,” the deacon replied. “Ken says so, and Dr. Catherin says so; and I guess they know, but,—oh,—don’t blame me who has been a deacon in good and regular standing in the orthodox church for thirty years. ’Tain’t my doings. They’ve a limb of Satan in there to see what she can do!”
“Wha-at?” Mr. Stone asked, thinking the deacon crazy. “What do you mean? Who is in there?”
“A Science woman! You’ve heard of ’em,” the deacon replied, expecting an explosion from his minister, but none came.
Mr. Stone was the most charitable of men, with broad views, which could take in more than the tenets of his own church.
“I’ve heard of them, yes,” he said, “and believe them to be good Christian people,—fanatical and cranky, perhaps,—but conscientious, and living what they profess.”
The deacon looked aghast at this high-handed heresy in his minister, but just then Mrs. Foster was seen leaving the farmhouse, and he only said: “There she is. Let’s go and see if Connie is up and dressed and combin’ her hair, as they pretend they can do.”
They found Mrs. Stannard and Dr. Catherin and Kenneth in the sitting-room, speaking together in low tones.
“How is Connie?” the deacon asked, and Kenneth replied:
“No change.”
“I told you so when you let her in. What did she do?” was the deacon’s next remark, to which no one answered till he repeated it to his wife. “What did she do?”