Peewee had gone up into the pulpit, the wheels of a carriage were heard
outside--steps were let down--there was an opening of doors, a slight
scuffing and treading, and old Christopher Burt entered. His head was
powdered, and he wore a queue. His coat collar was slightly whitened
with-powder, and he carried a gold-headed cane.

The boys looked in admiration upon so much respectability, powder, age,
and gold cane united in one person.

But all the boys were in love with the golden-haired grand-daughter.
They went home to talk about her. They went to bed to dream of her.
They read Mary Lamb's stories from Shakespeare, and Hope Wayne was
Ophelia, and Desdemona, and Imogen--above all others, she was Juliet.
They read the "Arabian Nights," and she was all the Arabian Princesses
with unpronounceable names. They read Miss Edgeworth--"Helen,"
"Belinda."--"Oh, thunder!" they cried, and dropped the book to think
of Hope.

Hope Wayne was not unconscious of the adoration she excited. If a swarm
of school-boys can not enter a country church without turning all their
eyes toward one pew, is it not possible that, when a girl comes in and
seats herself in that pew, the very focus of those burning glances, even
Dr. Peewee may not entirely distract her mind, however he may rivet her
eyes? As she takes her last glance at the Sunday toilet in her sunny
dressing-room at home, and half turns to be sure that the collar is
smooth, and that the golden curl nestles precisely as it should under the
moss rose-bud that blushes modestly by the side of a lovelier bloom--is
it not just supposable that she thinks, for a wayward instant, of other
eyes that will presently scan that figure and face, and feels, with a
half-flush, that they will not be shocked nor disappointed?