Joe Milgrave, back under the gallery, looked at Miller and Mary and then at Miranda Pryor, and sighed so heavily that every one within a radius of three pews heard him and knew what his trouble was.

Walter Blythe did not sigh.

But Rilla, scanning his face anxiously, saw a look that cut into her heart.

It haunted her for the next week and made an undercurrent of soreness in her soul, which was externally being harrowed up by the near approach of the Red Cross concert and the worries connected therewith.

The Reese cold had not developed into whooping-cough, so that tangle was straightened out.
But other things were hanging in the balance; and on the very day before the concert came a regretful letter from Mrs.Channing saying that she could not come to sing.