"Well said, Uncle," commented the crowder, a trifle more loudly as the
wind rose to a howl outside: "Lord, how this round world do spin!
Simme 'twas last week I sat as may be in the corner yonder (I sang bass
then), an' Pa'son Babbage by the desk statin' forth my own banns, an' me
with my clean shirt collar limp as a flounder. As for your mother, Zeb,
nuthin 'ud do but she must dream o' runnin' water that Saturday night,
an' want to cry off at the church porch because 'twas unlucky.
'Nothin' shall injuce me, Zeb,' says she, and inside the half hour there
she was glintin' fifty ways under her bonnet, to see how the rest o' the
maidens was takin' it."

"Hey," murmured Elias, the bachelor; "but it must daunt a man to hear
his name loudly coupled wi' a woman's before a congregation o' folks."

"'Tis very intimate," assented Old Zeb. But here the First Lesson
ended. There was a scraping of feet, then a clearing of throats, and
the musicians plunged into "_O, all ye works of the Lord_."

Young Zeb, amid the moaning of the storm outside the building and the
scraping and zooming of the instruments, string and reed, around him,
felt his head spin; but whether from the lozenge (that had suffered from
the companionship of a twist of tobacco in Elias Sweetland's pocket), or
the dancing last night, or the turbulence of his present emotions, he
could not determine. Year in and year out, grey morning or white, a
gloom rested always on the singers' gallery, cast by the tower upon the
south side, that stood apart from the main building, connected only by
the porch roof, as by an isthmus. And upon eyes used to this
comparative obscurity the nave produced the effect of a bright parterre
of flowers, especially in those days when all the women wore scarlet