CHAPTER III

BOB HAS GREAT NEWS


The new minister proved to be a gentle old man, evidently retired to
a country charge and, in his way, quite as diffident as Mrs. Peabody.
He was apparently charmed to be entertained on the porch, and saw
nothing wrong with the neglected house and grounds. His near-sighted
eyes, beaming with kindness and good-will, apparently took comfort
and serenity for granted, and when Betty came out half an hour after
his arrival, carrying a little tray of lemonade and cakes, he was
deep in a recital of the first charge he had held upon his graduation
from the theological seminary forty years before.

"There, that's over!" sighed Mrs. Peabody, quite like the
experienced hostess, when the minister's shabby black buggy was well
on its way out of the lane. "You're dreadful good, Betty, to help me
through with it. He won't come again for another six months--it takes
him that long to cover his parish, the farms are so far apart. Let me
help you carry back the chairs."

Betty longed to suggest that they leave them out and use the porch
as an outdoor sitting room, but she knew that such an idea would be
sure to meet with active opposition from the master of Bramble Farm.
Long before he came in to supper that night the chairs had been
restored to their proper places and Mrs. Peabody had resumed the gray
wrapper she habitually wore. Only the vase of flowers on the table