CHAPTER I.
Maria Edgham, who was a very young girl, sat in the church vestry beside a window during the weekly prayer-meeting.
As was the custom, a young man had charge of the meeting, and he stood, with a sort of embarrassed dignity, on the little platform behind the desk.

He was reading a selection from the Bible.

Maria heard him drone out in a scarcely audible voice: "Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth," and then she heard, in a quick response, a soft sob from the seat behind her.

She knew who sobbed: Mrs.Jasper Cone, who had lost her baby the week before.

The odor of crape came in Maria's face, making a species of discordance with the fragrance of the summer night, which came in at the open window.