Prob ` ly if I went to Sunday school I 'd find out . '' Salome limped out of the yard and down the lane bordered by its asters and goldenrod . Fortunately the church was just outside the lane , across the main road ; but Salome found it hard to cover even that short distance . She felt almost exhausted when she reached the church and toiled painfully up the aisle to her mother 's old pew . She laid her crutch on the seat , and sank into the corner by the window with a sigh of relief . She had elected to come early so that she might get there before the rest of the people . The church was as yet empty , save for a class of Sunday school children and their teacher in a remote corner , who paused midway in their lesson to stare with amazement at the astonishing sigh of Salome Marsh limping into church . 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 gently 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 XXXXX an intensity that was maternal .
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