Wednesday afternoon proved a real gala time to Dorothy. She entered with zest into the lamp-cleaning, and after a few lessons from Louise, developed a remarkable talent for making the chimneys glitter in the sunlight. The surprised and smiling sexton had done his share, and the dust from the long unswept room lay thick on pulpit and seat-rail. The room was comparatively warm too, which, if Louise had but known it, was a rare thing on Wednesday evening. John swung the old organ around in a business-like manner, and applied a drop of oil here and another there, then gave himself to the mending of one of the stops; while Lewis tacked on the new binding for the desk, and whistled softly an old tune. Altogether, Louise's plans were working royally. She had managed a difficult bit of business in the shape of a lunch, which had been smuggled into the buggy with them.
"What on earth do you want of that!" had Mrs. Morgan exclaimed in astonishment, when she had been appealed to. "You don't expect to work so hard that you will get hungry before supper, do you?"
"Why, we want it for our supper," said Louise. "You know we shall not have time to come back before prayer-meeting, and that will make us late for supper."
"Prayer-meeting!" No words on paper can express to you the surprise in the questioner's voice. "Are you going to stay to prayer-meeting?"
"Why, certainly; we want to see whether the lamps are improved. If Dorrie leaves lint on the glass it will show splendidly when they are lighted. Besides, I want to hear how that organ will sound when it doesn't squeak."
"And what is going to become of John-while you are staying to meeting?"
Mrs. Morgan's face had taken on a deeper cloud of disapprobation, and her voice was glumness intensified.
"Why, John will stay to meeting with us, of course."
This from Louise, in positive tone, albeit she was painfully uncertain about that very thing; certain only of this, that if John would not stay, the rest would not. It was no part of her plan to carry him down to the village, simply to be tempted of Satan, as he always was, at the street corners.
"Humph!" said Mrs. Morgan, senior, and she went her way, giving no sign of relief or approval, save that the lunch she prepared and packed for their united suppers was bountiful and inviting.