“I never liked that sort of thing, Ralph. I shouldn't believe with your people.”
“Ellen's people, please. _I_ don't believe with them either. But I always vote right. Now you think it over.”
“No, I shall not think it over. I don't approve of it. If I should take a pew in your church it would be simply to hear Mr. Peck preach, and contribute toward his--”
“Salary? Yes, that's the way to look at it in the beginning. I knew you'd work round. Why, Annie, in a year's time you'll be trying to _buy_ votes for Brother Peck.”
“I should _never_ vote,” she retorted. “And I shall keep myself out of all temptation by not going to your church.”
She went the next Sunday to hear Mr. Peck preach, and Putney, who seemed to see her the moment she entered the church, rose, as the sexton was showing her up the aisle, and opened the door of his pew for her with ironical welcome.
“You can always have a seat with us, Annie,” he mocked, on their way out of the church together.
“Thank you, Ralph,” she answered boldly. “I'm going to speak to the sexton for a pew.”
A wire had been carried from the village to the scene of the play at South Hatboro', and electric globes fizzed and hissed overhead, flooding the open tennis-court with the radiance of sharper moonlight, and stamping the thick velvety shadows of the shrubbery and tree-tops deep into the raw green of the grass along its borders.
The spectators were seated on the verandas and terraced turf at the rear of the house, and they crowded the sides of the court up to a certain point, where a cord stretched across it kept them from encroaching upon the space intended for the action. Another rope enclosed an area all round them, where chairs and benches were placed for those who had tickets. After the rejection of the exclusive feature of the original plan, Mrs. Munger had liberalised more and more: she caused it to be known that all who could get into her grounds would be welcome on the outside of that rope, even though they did not pay anything; but a large number of tickets had been sold to the hands, as well as to the other villagers, and the area within the rope was closely packed. Some of the boys climbed the neighbouring trees, where from time to time the town authorities threatened them, but did not really dislodge them.