dark-green velvet suit, white plumes and fine laces, well setting off
her marvellous beauty. Her eyes fairly drooped before the undisguised
admiration expressed in many faces.

The minister himself saw nothing of it at all. He was annoyed at
finding himself actually late, and his thoughts were intent on
getting to his place in the pulpit with all possible speed. It was
not one of his ambitions to be conspicuous; he was accustomed to slip
quietly into his place from the chapel door, and his apparently
triumphal march into his church on the first Sabbath of his return,
after all the people had assembled, as if to say, "Behold us now!"
was not to his taste nor of his planning; all this threw his thoughts
into a tumult unfitting him in part for his sacred duties.

At the close of service that day, the congregation did not discuss
the minister's sermon, they were absorbed in another subject: the
minister's wife. The opinions were various. Grave old deacons looked
askance at her in her regal beauty as they passed out, shook their
heads, and repeated to each other the familiar saying, that wise men
often make fools of themselves when they come to the business of
selecting a wife. One lady said she was "perfectly lovely;" another,
that she had "a great deal of style;" another, that "her dress must
have cost a penny, and she did not see for her part how a Christian
could find it in her conscience to dress like that."

"One would have thought," Mrs. Graves said, "that a man like Mr.
Eldred would have chosen a modest, sensible person for his wife, who
would be useful in the church, but then, that was the way, a minister
was just like any other man, money and a pretty face would cover up a
good many failings." Mrs. Graves was the mother of three sensible,