stayed home when it rained hard."

"Oh, we don't need a hard storm in the country. People say, 'It looks
threatening,' and that settles it; but we often drive to town rainy days to
save time."

"Do you usually go to church at the meeting house I see off in the valley?"
she asked.

"I don't go anywhere," and he watched keenly to see how she would take this
blunt statement of his practical heathenism.

She only looked at him kindly and accepted the fact.

"Why don't you pitch into me?" he asked.

"That wouldn't do any good."

"You'd like to go, I suppose?"

"No, not under the circumstances, unless you wished to. I'm cowardly enough
to dread being stared at."

He gave a deep sign of relief. "This thing has been troubling me," he said. "I
feared you would want to go, and if you did, I should feel that you ought to
go."

"I fear I'm very weak about it, but I shrink so from meeting strangers. I do
thank God for his goodness many times a day and ask for help. I'm not brave
enough to do any more, yet."