to read. "Lovingly as always, "Baby Con." When Carol read that letter she cried, and rubbed her face against her husband's shoulder,—regardless of the dollar powder on his black coat. "A teeny bit for father," she explained, "for all his girls are gone. And a little bit for Fairy, but she has Gene. And quite a lot for Larkie, but she has Jim and Violet." And then, clasping her arm about his shoulders, which, despite her teasing remonstrance, he allowed to droop a little, she cried exultantly: "But not one bit for me, for I have you, and Connie is a poor, poverty-stricken, wretched little waif, with nothing in the world worth having, only she doesn't know it yet." CHAPTER IV A WOMAN IN THE CHURCH And there was a woman in the church. There always is,—one who stands apart, distinct, different,—in the community but not with it, in the church but not of it. The woman in David's church was of a languorous, sumptuous type, built on generous proportions, with a mass of dark hair waving low on her forehead, with dark, straight-gazing, deep-searching eyes, the kind that impel and hold all truanting glances. She was slow in movement, suggesting a beautiful and commendable laziness. In public she talked very little, laughing never, but often smiling,—a curious smile that curved one corner of her lip and drew down the tip of one eye. She had been married, but no one knew anything about her husband. She was a member of the church, attended with most scrupulous regularity, assisted generously in a financial way, was on good terms with every one, and had not one friend in the congregation. The women were afraid of her. So were the men. But for different reasons. Those who would ask questions of her, ran directly against the concrete wall of the crooked smile, and turned away abashed, unsatisfied. Carol
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