All was at length arranged, and Temperance went off with her party dry beneath the umbrellas. The rest of the congregation took their drenching in good part. They were not going to complain of rain in one while!
The next day dawned with pale rain-bleached skies and fresh sweet odours of reanimated vegetation, but it dawned heavily for Sidney Martin. During the drive home from the church the evening before they had all been somewhat silent.
“Are you studyin’ for the ministry?” old Mr. Lansing had asked.
“No—oh no,” said Sidney, flushing unseen in the dark.
“It seems like you had a call,” said old Lansing, wishing he had not said quite so positively at the church that his visitor was qualifying for the service of God, and certainly from Mr. Lansing’s point of view he was justified in his assertion.
Young men in delicate health who could pray as Sidney Martin had prayed seemed to be the real ministerial material.
“Wouldn’t you like to be the minister?” asked Vashti.
People in Dole usually employed the definite article in referring to men of the cloth. To the Dole mind it smacked of irreverence to say “a” minister, as if there were herds of them as there is of common clay.
There was a _soupçon_ of surprise in Vashti’s tones. How quickly the acid of deception permeates the fabric of thought!
“I have no call to the ministry,” answered Sidney—employing the slang of the cult glibly to please the woman whom he loved.
“But if you felt you were called you would let nothing stand in your way—would you?”
“No,” said Sidney, glad of an opportunity to say an honest word frankly. “No.”
There was little else said. When they came to the cross-road Mr. Lansing halted and Nathan Peck got out of the waggon to walk down the Brixton road the quarter of a mile to where he lived with his mother.
He stood a lank ungraceful shape in the gloom.
“Here, Nat,” said Temperance, “take my umbrell.”
“Not by a jugful,” he said. “Why, Temp’rins! you’d be soaked clean through.”
“Temperance can come under my umbrella,” said Mabella, divining the pleasure it would give Temperance to yield up hers to Nathan.
“I’ve got my muffler on,” said Nathan stoutly.
“Here!” said Temperance, a trifle imperatively. “Good-night, Nat.”
The bays pulling at the reins started forward and Nat was left with the umbrella.