The big building, shadowy from the great elms around it,
was very still. A faint murmur came from the closed room behind
the pulpit where the rest of the Sunday school was assembled.
In front of the pulpit was a stand bearing tall white
geraniums in luxuriant blossom. The light fell through the
stained-glass window in a soft tangle of hues upon the floor.
Salome felt a sense of peace and happiness fill her heart.
Even Judith's anger lost its importance. She leaned her head
against the window-sill, and gave herself up to the flood
of tender old recollections that swept over her.
Memory went back to the years of her childhood when she had
sat in this pew every Sunday with her mother. Judith had
come then, too, always seeming grown up to Salome by reason of her
ten years' seniority. Her tall, dark, reserved father never came.
Salome knew that the Carmody people called him an infidel,
and looked upon him as a very wicked man. But he had not been wicked;
he had been good and kind in his own odd way.
The gentle little mother had died when Salome was ten years old,
but so loving and tender was Judith's care that the child
did not miss anything out of her life. Judith Marsh loved
her little sister with an intensity that was maternal.
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