anomaly-an unsaved woman, a sinner, a lost soul. It should be noted that these terms are used in the technical Glendale sense and are not intended to convey the idea of wicked deeds on Mrs. Murray's part. Far from it! She was boundlessly large-hearted, and generous to a fault-an angel of mercy in times of sickness and need. So much more the pity that she should be "lost"! But lost she was beyond all human help, for Mrs. Murray was that most flagrant and daring of all the unrighteous, an outspoken "free-thinker”—an "infidel"! Not only did she disavow allegiance to any church she had ever known or heard of, but she had even hooted at certain tenets of the righteous. One of her most horrifying statements rang ever in the ears of Glendale, not only because of its blasphemy but also on account of a diabolical pseudo-logicality with which it was tinged. "Believe in hell!" she had said. "Why sure I don't! I ain't no kid that's got to be threatened with a everlastin' whippin' to make him be good!"

Undoubtedly the devil had marked Mrs. Murray for his own. And yet to many the thought of heaven was mingled with a pang that she would not be there. It was hard to think of Mrs. Murray, jovial, rotund Mrs. Murray who welcomed their babies into the world and closed the eyes of their dead, burning eternally in the lake of fire; and many a wet-eyed "sister" and shaky-voiced "brother," in the periodical revivals that racked Glendale, pleaded with her to renounce the error of her way. Though seldom seen at the regular church services, she attended revivals with fair regularity, having shockingly said she "did love excitement." As the wailing strains of "Almost Persuaded" or "Why Not Tonight?" followed the sermon and the "invitation," they were wont to steal

down the straw-covered aisles of the tent to where Mrs. Murray sat in the rear-a substantial reef of unconcern in the heaving emotional sea. She always listened with a kindly smile to their low-voiced urgings; but sometimes, when the crowd around her grew too dense and the summer temperature too sultry for endurance, she would firmly withdraw herself from the pleading, praying ring and relentlessly leave the tent, wiping her perspiring face and heaving a sigh of relief as she stepped out under the sky.

On the memorable night when eighteen-year-old Tom Embree made his tardy "profession," his mother had said in the testimony-meeting which followed the enfolding of this stray lamb, that her cup of joy would be full, "if only Miz Murray would give her heart to the Lord"! And Brother Murray,-it should be remarked that there was a Brother Murray, a futile, watery-eyed little man,had roused himself from his chronic apathy of religious meditation long enough to rise and ask prayers of the entire tent for his erring wife. This was after Mrs. Murray had withdrawn.

It was a monstrous, an unbelievable thing, that she should remain obdurate under all the pressure exerted. But obdurate she was, surrounding herself with a wall of benevolent stoicism against which Glendale battered its spiritual head in vain.

And her ultimate fate appeared to weigh lightly on the prospective victim of eternal punishment. Had you seen her emerge from the door one spring evening at dusk and go through the side gate to the Widow Embree's, you would at once have remarked her care-free and irresponsible bearing. Her walk somehow gave the impression that, without the impediment of avoirdupois, it

would have been a skip; and-strange incongruity of feminine middle-age!-Mrs. Murray was whistling! Not a hymn tune, of course, but a frivolous air, picked up from -heaven knows where!

As she passed the clump of wild-plum bushes half way between her fence and the Widow Embree's back door, she paused and stood listening. The widow was singing. Against the light window-shade, her shadow at the ironing-board stood out in spare silhouette, one thin arm moving back and forth is a sort of rhythm to the cracked falsetto drifting through the open door:

"Shall we gather at the river,

The beautiful, the beautiful river-
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God?"

Mrs. Murray threw out her hands in a pagan gesture of futility and lifted her eyes to the stars. Heaving herself up the back steps, she stood in the kitchen door, which her capacious bulk almost filled.

"Ironin', are you-this time of night?"

Mrs. Embree turned a face of pleased welcome. "Well, well, Miz Murray! Do come right in and set down. It's mighty nice to have comp'ny while you work. Have that rocker there."

"I didn't come to set in no rocker. I come to see why on earth you're ironin' when you washed all day. Give me that there iron an' you set an' rest a spell. I'm a tryin' to reduce this spring-before the hot weather hits mean' ironin's the best job I know of to git up a good sweat."

Over-ruling the widow's remonstrances, Mrs. Murray thrust her in a chair and began to ply the iron vigorously. Mrs. Embree's flat bosom lifted in a sigh as she sank

back in the rocker and closed her eyes. Against its starched, ravelled tidy, her face, with unheeded wisps of hair trailed across it, was a cameo of weariness, violetshadowed and ashy. Mrs. Murray threw her a startled look; for the first time she saw her friend as an old woman. She was driving herself unmercifully-and to what end? Suspicion flamed in Mrs. Murray.

"Where's Tom?" she demanded. "Is he workin' tonight?"

Life flowed into Mrs. Embree's face. "Yes, this's his night in the store. He won't get in till after ten.”

"Tom ought to be makin' right good money now," said Mrs. Murray with a set look.

"Oh, he does, Miz Murray! Why Tom pays most of our livin' expenses." The widow sat bolt upright; there was pride in her voice.

Mrs. Murray set down the iron and faced her neighbor sternly. "Well, then I want to know in the name of all that's holy what makes you work like this?".

Mrs. Embree took on a curiously secretive expression -the look of one asked to divulge the hiding-place of carefully guarded treasure.

"You might's well know," continued her neighbor, "the town thinks maybe Tom don't do right by you."

The bony hands gripped the chair arms. "Oh, Miz Murray," she quavered, "there never was a better boy on earth than Tom. Of course, he's careless sorter-bein' so young and sometimes I worry he ain't more spiritual minded, but he's always good to me. He don't like for me to keep on washin' but I-I-" Again that guarding look.

"It ain't Callie, is it?" Mrs. Murray persisted, "Don't Amos make her a livin'?"

on.

A reminiscent shadow clouded the faded eyes.

"Oh, yes, she an' Amos 'pear to have enough to live She don't never ask me for money, though she does like for me to come out oncet in a while an' hep her clean up. Callie never was right strong. She ain't to blame for nothing. It all come of what I went through before she was born. Her paw had got the call to preach an' it lef' me with the spring plantin' to do."

She rose and advanced resolutely to the ironing-board. "Now here, Miz Murray, you give me that there iron. You reckon I'm a goin' to set here an' see you do my work?"

Again she was forced into the chair. "You leave me be. I come over here to iron, and iron I'm goin' to! You say Mister Embree got the call to preach an' lef' you the plantin' to do?"

"Why, yes, Miz Murray. What else could he do? He got the call. It come clear as a bell one day when he was in the middle of a furrer, an' he dropped the lines right there and lef' the team stand, an' he come runnin' to the house an' he sez to me: 'Mollie !' sez he, 'Hallelujah! The Lord has called me!' An' we both fell right down on our knees an' thanked the Lord. An' when we got up he says: 'Git my satchel, Mollie, an' pack it quick. I must be up an' away on the Lord's business.'-An' from that time on till he died he was gone from home most all the time."

Mrs. Murray walked to the stove, standing with her back to Mrs. Embree, and her wet forefinger hissed against a hot iron. Perhaps her action had the purpose of hiding the expression on her face, but all she said was: "Well, I just dare Jim Murray to git the call. If he did he'd wisht mighty soon he'd been deef-even if we ain't