At ten o'clock on Sunday morning Sheila herself backed the gray mare
out of her stable and harnessed her into the shafts of the carryall.
"For a city gal, you are the handiest creature!" sighed Prudence,
marveling.
The girl only smiled. She was now used to such comments. They did
not make her heart flutter as had any reference to her past life at
first.
The bell in the steeple of the green-blinded, white-painted church
on the farther edge of the port was tinkling tinnily as the girl
drove the old mare down the hill, with Cap'n Ira and Prudence in the
rear seat of the carriage.
"We ain't felt we could undertake churchgoing for months, Ida May,"
the old woman said. "And I miss Elder Minnett's sermons."
"So do I," agreed her husband, with his usual caustic turn of
speech. "I swan! I can sleep better under the elder's preaching than
I can to home."
"If you go to sleep to-day, Ira, I shall step on your foot," warned
his wife.
"You'd better take care which one you step on," rejoined Cap'n Ira.
"I got a corn on one that jumps like an ulcerated tooth. If you
touch that I shall likely surprise you more'n I do when I take
snuff."
The Portygees had a chapel devoted to their faith.
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