He glanced around the pleasant room. Yes, there on the desk was a

telephone! Could he get to it? He sat up and painfully edged his way

over to the desk.

"Safely through another week,

God has brought us on our way--"

chimed the bells, "Let us now a blessing seek,

Waiting in His courts to-day--"

But Laurie Shafton had never sung those words in his life and had no

idea what the bells were seeking to get across to him. He took down the

receiver and called for Long Distance.

"Oh day of rest and gladness!"

pealed out the bells joyously, "Oh day of joy and light!

Oh balm for care and sadness,

Most beautiful, most bright--"

But it meant nothing to Laurie Shafton seeking a hotel in a fashionable

resort. And when he finally got his number it was only Opal's maid who

answered.

"Yes, Mrs. Verrons was up. She was out walking on the beach with a

gentleman. No, it was not Mr. Emerson, nor yet Mr. McMarter. Neither of

those gentlemen had arrived. No, it was not Mr. Verrons. He had just

telegraphed that he would not be at the hotel until tomorrow night.

Yes, she would tell Mrs. Verrons that he had met with an accident. Mrs.

Verrons would be very sorry. Number one-W Sabbath Valley. Yes, she

would write it down. What? Oh! The gentleman Mrs. Verrons was walking

with? No, it was not anybody that had been stopping at the hotel for

long, it was a new gentleman who had just come the night before. She

hadn't heard his name yet. Yes, she would be sure to tell Mrs. Verrons

at once when she came in, and Mrs. Verrons would be likely to call him

up!"

He hung up the receiver and looked around the room discontentedly. A

stinging twinge of his ankle added to his discomfort. He gave an angry

snarl and pushed the wavering curtain aside, wishing those everlasting

bells would stop their banging.

Across the velvet stretch of lawn the stone church nestled among the

trees, with a background of mountains, and a studding of white

gravestones beyond its wide front steps. It was astonishingly

beautiful, and startlingly close for a church. He had not been so near

to a church except for a wedding in all his young life. Dandy place for

a wedding that would be, canopy over the broad walk from the street,

charming architecture, he liked the line of the arched belfry and the

slender spire above. The rough stone fitted well into the scenery. The

church seemed to be a thing of the ages placed there by Nature. His

mind trained to detect a sense of beauty in garments, rugs, pictures,

and women, appreciated the picture on which he was gazing. Where was

this anyway? Surely not the place with the absurd name that he

remembered now on the mountain Detour. Sabbath Valley! How ridiculous!

It must be the home of some wealthy estate, and yet there seemed a

rustic loveliness about it that scarcely established that theory.




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