The hour is past when these things might be scoffed at; the old legends have given place to scientific data more marvellous than the myths they discredit. The law has recognized the verity of these things, and justice has vindicated its decision with the extreme fiat of death. Alas, the justice of men is for those who kill the body; it cannot reach those who murder the mind.
The church was unusually crowded when Sidney arose. It had been hinted abroad that Ann Serrup was to be there, and Dole stirred with pleasurable anticipation, for Ann Serrup was an unregenerate individual so far as religion was concerned.
It was related of her that once at a revival meeting in Brixton, when the fiery revivalist of that place, Mr. Hackles, approached her, asking in sepulchral tones where she expected to go when she died, Ann replied, unmoved, that she would go to where they put her, a response calculated, in the mind of Mrs. Ranger, to bring a “judgment onto her.”
The Rev. Hackles denounced her as a vessel of wrath and designated her as chaff ready to be cast into the fire, but Ann sat dreamily through it all, and, as Lanty related afterwards, “never turned a hair.” And this was when she bore no other shame than the stigma of being a Serrup, and therefore predestined to evil, and now she was coming to Dole church. What would their gentle pastor say?
It was a sweet summer day. Mabella and little Dorothy sat by a window, and the yellow sunshine lingered about the two yellow heads, and reached out presently to Lanty’s curls when he entered a little later.
Vashti, white and stately, entered with Sally and took her place in the conspicuous pew set aside for the preacher’s family. Sally behaved herself demurely enough in church now, but such is the force of habit that the eyes of all the juveniles in Dole were bent steadily upon the preacher’s pew, for in Sally their childish instinct and experience told them there were possibilities, and indeed, to be strictly truthful, it must be confessed that now and then, at decent intervals, Sally treated them to a surreptitious grimace worth watching for.
Mrs. Ranger sat in the body of the church, with the expression of one who perceives an evil odour. This expression was assumed with her Sunday bonnet and laid aside with it. Indeed, Mrs. Ranger thought too much both of her Sunday bonnet and her religious principles to use either of them on week days.