he had not seen her. He looked down at her thirstily. His excitement at having played his sermon to such applause was nothing beside his excitement over the fact that he would have her near him in his future clerical labors. Life was a promising and glowing thing as he held her hand and tried not to sound too insistently affectionate. "Such a pleasure to meet you, Sister Lulu."
Lulu was nineteen or twenty. She had a diminutive class of twelve-year-old boys in the Sunday School. Elmer had intended to sneak out during Sunday School, leaving Frank Shallard responsible, and find a place where he could safely smoke a Pittsburgh stogie, but in view of this new spiritual revelation he hung about, beaming with holy approbation of the good work and being manly and fraternal with the little boys in Lulu's class.
"If you want to grow up and be big fellows, regular sure-enough huskies, you just listen to what Miss Bains has to tell you about how Solomon built that wonderful big ole temple," he crooned at them; and if they twisted and giggled in shyness, at least Lulu smiled at him . . . gray-and-white kitten with sweet kitten eyes . . . small soft kitten who purred, "Oh, now, Brother Gantry, I'm just so scared I don't hardly dare teach" . . . big eyes that took him into their depths, till he heard her lisping as the voice of angels, larks, and whole orchestras of flutes.
He could not let her go at the end of Sunday School. He must hold her—
"Oh, Sister Lulu, come see the hand-car Frank and I—Brother Shallard and I—came down on. The fun-niest! Just laugh your head off!"
As the section gang passed through Schoenheim at least ten times a week, hand-cars could have been no astounding novelty to Lulu, but she trotted beside him, and stared prettily, and caroled, "Oh, hon-est! Did you come down on that? Well, I never!"
She shook hands cheerfully with both of them. He thought jealously that she was as cordial to Frank as to himself.
"He better watch out and not go fooling round my girl!" Elmer reflected, as they pumped back toward Babylon.
He did not congratulate Frank on having overcome his dread of stolid country audiences (Frank had always lived in
