Despite a desire not to do so, her husband was obliged to laugh.
"Well," he said hesitatingly, "you know they never leave a farmhouse alone and go to church."
"I didn't know it, I am sure. Why don't they?"
"I declare I don't know," and he laughed again. "Possibly it is a notion; there are ugly-looking fellows prowling around sometimes, and—well, it's the custom, anyhow."
"Don't they ever close the house and all go away?"
Then was Lewis Morgan nonplussed. Distinct memories rose before his eyes of Good Fridays and Christmas days, and gala days of several sorts, when the house had been closed and darkened, and left to itself from early morning late into the afternoon. How was he to explain why a thing that was feasible for holidays became impracticable on the Sabbath?
"I'm not sure but that is one of the things that 'no f-f-fellow can f-f-find out,'" he said, with a burst of laughter. "Do you know 'Lord Dundreary'?" Then: "Seriously, Louise, our family has fallen into the custom that obtains of not closing a farmhouse save on special occasions. I suspect the custom sometimes grows out of indifference for church. You remember that none of the family have a real love for the service. It is a source of sorrow to me, as you may suppose. I hope for better things."
Then the talk drifted away into other channels; but in Louise's heart there lingered a minor tone of music over the thought that the next day would be the Sabbath. Shut away, for the first time in her life, from the prayer-meeting, from the hour of family worship, from constant and pleasant interchange of thought on religious themes, she felt a hunger for it all such as she had never realized before, and closed her eyes that night with this refrain in her heart, "To-morrow I shall go to church."
The first conscious sound the next morning was the dripping of the rain-drops from the eaves.
"Oh dear!" Lewis said, dismay in his voice. "We are going to have a rainy day!"