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Why, Abner, I—I wouldn't be ashamed of you in the presence of the angels!"

The trembling flame of her affection for him, her pride in him, poured through the girl's fingers and shone through the look in her face.

Abner became suddenly and movingly aware that Nessie loved him. His heart began to beat. A film fell over the evening and blotted out for him the procession of people, the street, the whole village, and left just him and Nessie moving arm-in-arm through a sort of perfumed space. The touch of her fingers felt as intimate to him as the feel of his own flesh; the sentiency of their bodies seemed to pour through their linked arms so that she, in a way, became a very part of his own being; the sweeter, more exquisite part. Unconsciously their breathing fell into rhythm. They moved along through pellucid shadows in silence except for their faint sighs. A strange fancy crossed Nessie's mind, that Abner might, if he liked, walk over her prostrate body with his heavy feet.

A few steps behind them Miss Scovell, eyeing the mere walk of the lovers, whispered acridly to her companion, "Jest look at that—ain't they sickening?"

The spirit of the meeting on that particular night somehow was not so electric as usual. The congregation, perhaps the preacher too, had fallen into one of those slumps which sometimes overtake the most enthusiastic revival. The Reverend Blackman was irritated. Some of his most promising penitents who invariably had come forward to the mourners' bench for the last three or four nights, now, through some perverseness, remained stock still in their seats and would not budge on any proposition.

The minister always worked his hearers into action with "propositions." He would say, "Everybody who wants to meet their mothers in Heaven, walk up and give me your hand! Everybody who wants to see Jesus, come up and give me your hand! What, won't nobody come? Well