Page:Solo (1924).pdf/89

 Her unmanageable daughter elbowed her to one side. "I'll tell him," Gritty announced.

Mrs. Kestrell looked frightened, but Gritty's hand was already on the door-knob.

"You know where girls go for telling fibs," Paul cautioned her in the bantering tones he and Gritty had begun to assume with regard to religious discussions.

"Oh, pooh!" she flung back. "I ain't afraid of no hell nor no ministers."

"Why, Margaret!" exclaimed Mrs. Kestrell in deep distress. She had never used the nickname by which her daughter was universally known.

"Leave me be, ma. I'm going, I tell you."

Paul stole out through the back door, and from behind the well watched the minister leave the house. When Gritty joined him, they went to the gate and, with thumbs to their noses, waggled eighteen grubby fingers at the retreating broadcloth.

When Paul had gained his point with regard to the Baptist school at Wolfville, he had no valid excuse for rejecting the alternative, a non-sectarian boy's school in Halifax. The fact that the suggestion emanated from Dr. Wilcove implied that the school was depressingly safe, but he could scarcely object on such negative evidence. After all, the school was in Halifax, a city infinitely bigger than Bridgetown, with a population of 40,000—so many people that you might never "get to know" them all by sight. It was thrilling too, to be going so far alone on the train, with a trunk, two bags, and five dollars. It was kind of Dr. Wilcove to give him so much money, It never occurred to him that the money might be his own, and not the doctor's. He had heard vague talk of trustees, but had thought of them as of-