What would they think when they saw the organist of the Catholic church come to pick out a piano for the Methodist parsonage?
And how could he decorously prefer the request to her to undertake this task?
He might not meet her again for ages, and to his provincial notions writing would have seemed out of the question.

And would it not be disagreeable to have her know that he was buying a piano by part payments?
Poor Alice's dread of the washerwoman's gossip occurred to him, at this, and he smiled in spite of himself.

Then all at once the difficulty vanished.

Of course it would come all right somehow.

Everything did.
He was on firmer ground, buying the materials for the new book, over on the stationery side.