Ramsay turned sharply, stood stiff and straight, then saluted with an elaborate bow. “Good morning, Ethel. Why, good morning, Jane. You down here? Delighted to see you.”
“Ramsay, could you come over this afternoon to our island?” said Ethel. “Jane is going back this week.”
“Sure thing, Ethel. Nothing but scarlet fever, small-pox, or other contectious or infagious, confagious or intexious—eh, disease will prevent me. The afternoon or the evening?” he added with what he meant to be a most ingratiating smile. “The late afternoon or the early evening?”
The little girls, who had been staring at him with wide, wondering eyes, began to giggle.
“I'll be there,” continued Ramsay. “I'll be there, I'll be there, when the early evening cometh, I'll be there.” He bowed deeply to the young ladies and winked solemnly at Isabel, who by this time was finding it quite impossible to control her giggles.
“Isn't he awfully funny?” she said as they moved off. “I think he is awfully funny.”
“Funny!” said Ethel. “Disgusting, I think.”
“Oh, Ethel, isn't it terribly sad?” said Jane. “Poor Mrs. Dunn, she feels so awfully about it. They say he is going on these days in a perfectly dreadful way.”
The little brick church was comfortably filled with the townsfolk and with such of the summer visitors as had not “left their religion behind them in Winnipeg,” as Jane said. The preacher was a little man whose speech betrayed his birth, and the theology and delivery of whose sermon bore the unmistakable marks of his Edinburgh training. He discoursed in somewhat formal but in finished style upon the blessings of rest, with obvious application to the special circumstances of the greater part of his audience who had come to this most beautiful of all Canada's beautiful spots seeking these blessings. To further emphasise the value of their privileges, he contrasted with their lot the condition of unhappy Servia now suffering from the horrors of war and threatened with extinction by its tyrannical neighbour, Austria. The war could end only in one way. In spite of her gallant and heroic fight Servia was doomed to defeat. But a day of reckoning would surely come, for this was not the first time that Austria had exercised its superior power in an act of unrighteous tyranny over smaller states. The God of righteousness was still ruling in his world, and righteousness would be done.
At the close of the service, while they were singing the final hymn, Mr. McPherson, after a whispered colloquy with Mr. Murray, made his way to the pulpit, where he held an earnest conversation with the minister. Instead of pronouncing the benediction and dismissing the congregation when the final “Amen” had been sung, the minister invited the people to resume their seats, when Mr. McPherson rose and said,