Peter's turn came next. He did not write his sermon out. That, he , was too hard work. Nor did he mean to take a text.  
"Why, who ever heard of a sermon without a text?" asked Felix blankly.
 
"I am going to take a SUBJECT instead of a text," said Peter loftily. "I ain't going to tie myself down to a text. And I'm going to have heads in it—three heads. You hadn't a single head in yours," he added to me.
 
"Uncle Alec says that Uncle Edward says that heads are beginning to go out of fashion," I said —all the more defiantly that I felt I should have had heads in my sermon. It would doubtless have made a much deeper impression. But the truth was I had forgotten all about such things.
 
"Well, I'm going to have them, and I don't care if they are unfashionable," said Peter. "They're good things. Aunt Jane used to say if a man didn't have heads and stick to them he'd go wandering all over the Bible and never get anywhere in particular."
 
"What are you going to preach on?" asked Felix.
 
"You'll find out next Sunday," said Peter significantly.
 
The next Sunday was in October, and a lovely day it was, warm and as June. There was something in the fine, air, that recalled beautiful, forgotten things and suggested delicate future hopes. The woods had wrapped fine-woven gossamers about them and the westering hill was and gold.
 
We sat around the Pulpit Stone and waited for Peter and Sara Ray. It was the former's Sunday off and he had gone home the night before, but he assured us he would be back in time to preach his sermon. Presently he arrived and mounted the as if to the born. He was dressed in his new suit and I, perceiving this, felt that he had the advantage of me. When I preached I had to wear my second best suit, for it was one of Aunt Janet's laws that we should take our good suits off when we came home from church. There were, I saw, compensations for being a hired boy.
 
Peter made quite a handsome little minister, in his navy blue coat, white collar, and bowed tie. His black eyes shone, and his black curls were brushed up in quite a ministerial pompadour, but threatened to tumble over at the top in graceless ringlets.
 
It was that there was no use in waiting for Sara Ray, who might or might not come, according to the humour in which her mother was. Therefore Peter proceeded with the service.
 
He read the chapter and gave out the with as much SANG FROID as if he had been doing it all his life. Mr. Marwood himself could not have bettered the way in which Peter said,
 
"We will sing the whole hymn, omitting the fourth ."
 
That was a fine touch which I had not thought of. I began to think that, after all, Peter might be a foeman of my steel.
 
When Peter was ready to begin he thrust his hands into his pockets—a totally unorthodox thing. Then he in without further ado, speaking in his ordinary tone—another unorthodox thing. There was no shorthand reporter present to take that sermon down; but, if necessary, I could preach it over verbatim, and so, I doubt not, could everyone that heard it. It was not a forgettable kind of sermon.
 
"Dearly beloved," said Peter, "my sermon is about the bad place—in short, about hell."
 
An electric shock seemed to run through the audience. Everybody looked suddenly alert. Peter had, in one sentence, done what my whole sermon had failed to do. He had made an impression.
 
"I shall divide my sermon into three heads," pursued Peter. "The first head is, what you must not do if you don't want to go to the bad place. The second head is, what the bad place is like"—sensation in the audience—"and the third head is, how to escape going there.
 
"Now, there's a great many things you must not do, and it's very important to know what they are. You ought not to lose no time in finding out. In the first place you mustn't ever forget to mind what grown-up people tell you—that is, GOOD grown-up people."
 
"But how are you going to tell who are the good grown-up people?" asked Felix suddenly, forgetting that he was in church.
 
"Oh, that is easy," said Peter. "You can always just FEEL who is good and who isn't. And you mustn't tell lies and you mustn't murder any one. You must be careful not to murder any one. You might be forgiven for telling lies, if you was real sorry for them, but if you murdered any one it would be pretty hard to get forgiven, so you'd better be on the safe side. And you mustn't commit suicide, because if you did that you wouldn't have any chance of it; and you mustn't forget to say your prayers and you mustn't quarrel with your sister."
 
At this point Felicity gave Dan a significant with her elbow, and Dan was up in arms at once.
 
"Don't you be preaching at me, Peter Craig," he cried out. "I won't stand it. I don't quarrel with my sister any oftener than she quarrels with me. You can just leave me alone."
 
"Who's you?" demanded Peter. "I didn't mention no names. A minister can say anything he likes in the pulpit, as long as he doesn't mention any names, and nobody can answer back."
 
"All right, but just you wait till to-morrow," Dan, reluctantly into silence under the reproachful looks of the girls.
 
"You must not play any games on Sunday," went on Peter, "that is, any week-day games—or whisper in church, or laugh in church—I did that once but I was awful sorry—and you mustn't take any notice of Paddy—I mean of the family cat at family prayers, not even if he climbs up on your back. And you mustn't call names or make faces."
 
"Amen," cried Felix, who had suffered many things because
Felicity so often made faces at him.
Peter stopped and glared at him over the edge of the Pulpit
Stone.
"You haven't any business to call out a thing like that right in the middle of a sermon," he said.
 
"They do it in the Methodist church at Markdale," protested
Felix, somewhat . "I heard them."
"I know they do. That's the Methodist way and it is all right for them. I haven't a word to say against Methodists. My Aunt Jane was one, and I might have been one myself if I hadn't been so scared of the Day. But you ain't a Methodist. You're a Presbyterian, ain't you?"
 
"Yes, of course. I was born that way."
 
"Very well then, you've got to do things the Presbyterian way.
Don't let me hear any more of your amens or I'll amen you."
"Oh, don't anybody interrupt again," the Story Girl. "It isn't fair. How can any one preach a good sermon if he is always being interrupted? Nobody interrupted Beverley."
 
"Bev didn't get up there and pitch into us like that," muttered
Dan.
"You mustn't fight," resumed Peter undauntedly. "That is, you mustn't fight for the fun of fighting, nor out of bad temper. You must not say bad words or swear. You mustn't get drunk—although of course you wouldn't be likely to do that before you grow up, and the girls never. There's prob'ly a good many other things you mustn't do, but these I've named are the most important. Of course, I'm not saying you'll go to the bad place for sure if you do them. I only say you're running a risk. The devil is looking out for the people who do these things and he'll be more likely to get after them than to waste time over the people who don't do them. And that's all about the first head of my sermon."
 
At this point Sara Ray arrived, somewhat out of breath. Peter looked at her reproachfully.
 
"You've missed my whole first head, Sara," he said. "that isn't fair, when you're to be one of the judges. I think I ought to preach it over again for you."
 
"That was really done once. I know a story about it," said the
Story Girl.
"Who's interrupting now?" aid Dan slyly.
 
"Never mind, tell us the story," said the preacher himself, eagerly leaning over the pulpit.
 
"It was Mr. Scott who did it," said the Story............