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 singing in the trees which shaded the church, and away out yonder the river smiled, and the woods beckoned one to cool shadows and mossy glades.

Thoughts of those glades and shadows occupied Janet in her pew far more than thoughts of the sermon. But those were not by any means her only thoughts; once or twice she had ventured an admirably careless and unstudied glance in the direction of two young men who were sitting far over at the side of the church, both of whom were maintaining a commendable and heroic mien of strict attention to the words of the parson.

It was not, however, Larry Stark who had drawn her glances; her eyes had been directed toward the clear profile of Larry's pewmate, concerning whom she was again wondering and conjecturing. On discovering Tom Locke there, she had felt a shock of surprise, yet somehow he did not seem at all out of place, and never was there the faintest token that the experience was for him in any degree novel or unusual.

So absorbed was she in her speculations that presently she was almost startled to find the sermon ended, and to hear her father intoning the first lines of the closing hymn; never before had one of his discourses seemed so short and passed so quickly.