"Are you back? Come pick up Father's pipe and tell him about the sermon."
Rendered speechless by the consciousness of her misery and of her tear-streaked face, Ellen moved no farther, and hearing no advancing step and feeling no warm creature against his knee, Levis opened his eyes.
"Why, Ellen, dear, what's the matter? Why are you home so early? Where's Matthew? Come here quickly!"
Blinded afresh by tears, Ellen started toward her accustomed sanctuary.
"What a heavy Ellen it is! Is there anything the matter with Matthew?"
Ellen shook her head. There was nothing the matter with Matthew in the sense in which her father spoke, yet there was everything the matter with him.
Suddenly tears seemed an inadequate expression of her trouble. Her father's face, seen above hers, was pitying, yet a little amused. The woes of childhood were so small--he wondered whether it was a sick kitten or a lame horse that had stirred Ellen's tender heart.
"Now, Ellen, tell me what is the matter."
Ellen sat up and dried her eyes on her father's large, smooth handkerchief. She remembered--oh, blessed relief!--that of course her father could stop Matthew. Matthew was to go away to learn to be a physician; he could not be a Seventh-Day Baptist!
"I ran away from meeting," she confessed, feeling the first doubt of her course.
Levis's face was grave, but his eyes twinkled.
"It was so long and I got so tired looking at half a tree and a little grass, and at the brothers and sisters and Grandfather's white beard."
"Why, Ellen!" Levis frowned, not in anger, but so that he might concentrate both physical and mental vision upon his daughter.
Now Ellen revealed the heart of the trouble.
"Grandfather preached at Matthew and me!"
"Yes, and Matthew made a speech about believing in everything. He's going to be immersed, Father, and he will be at the Foot-washing. They wanted me to, but I ran away. I couldn't stand it."
Ellen laid her hands across her plump body.
"It makes me feel all tight here. And I couldn't bear to take off my shoes and stockings."
"No," answered Levis. "I should think you couldn't! Can you remember just what was said to you and Matthew?"
"Grandfather said we ought to come to the meeting and get into the cleansing flood. It was very dark and uncomfortable."