Rising, he headed for Janet, who, with her father, Jeannie, Timmins, and the minister, stood talking at the vestry door. As he made his way forward, he reaped a portion of the Devil's promised fame. As they filed sheepishly down the aisle, the Dunlopers gave him the cold shoulder, and when he joined the group, Elder McCakeron returned a stony stare to his greeting.
“But ye needna mind that,” the Devil encouraged. “He daurna tell, for his own share i' the business.”
So Saunders brazened it out. “Ye ha' my congratulations, Mr. McCakeron. I hear you're to get a son-in-law oot o' this?”
If Elder McCakeron had given Saunders the tempter the glare which he now bestowed on Saunders the successfully wicked, he had not been in such lamentable case.
“Why, what is this?” the minister exclaimed. “Cause for further congratulation, Brother Timmins?”
Saunders now shone as Cupid's assistant. “He was to ha' Janet on condeetion that he made the eldership,” he fulsomely explained.
The minister's glance questioned the elder.
“Well,” he growled, “I'm no going back on my word.”
Saunders glowed all over, and in exuberance of spirit actually winked at Margaret McDonald across the kirk. Man, but she was pretty!
“It's to your credit, Mr. McCakeron, that you should hold til a promise,” Jeannie was saying. “But ye'll no be held. A man may change his mind, and since you refused Joshua, he's decided to marry on me.”
Saunders blenched. He half turned to flee, but Janet's strong fingers closed on his sleeve; and as her lips moved to claim him before minister and meeting, he thought that he heard the Devil chuckling, a great way off.
Mrs. Manstey's big country-house was temporarily empty of the guests she had gathered for a week-end in June when the two Eversley girls reached it, Saturday at noon. Their hostess met them at the door when the carriage wheels crunched on the gravelled curve of the drive before the house--a charming gray-haired woman of sixty, with a youthful face and a delicate girlish color.
“I've sent everybody away to explore--to ravage the country,” she gayly explained the emptiness of the large hall, where the grouped chairs seemed recently vacated and pleasantly suggestive of suspended tête-à-tête. “I've had Rose before,” Mrs. Manstey pursued, taking them up the stairs to their rooms, “but not _you!_” She gave Edith's shoulder an affectionate little pat. She thought the younger girl extremely beautiful--which she was, with a vivid, piquant face and charming eyes.