much more than descend the pulpit stairs, unless he ran an indecorous
race.

And young Evelina never at twilight strolled up the road in the
direction of Thomas Merriam's home, where she might quite reasonably
hope to meet him, since he was wont to go to the store when the
evening stage-coach came in with the mail from Boston.

Instead she paced the garden paths, or, when there was not too heavy
a dew, rambled across the fields; and there was also a lane where she
loved to walk. Whether or not Thomas Merriam suspected this, or had
ever seen, as he passed the mouth of the lane, the flutter of
maidenly draperies in the distance, it so happened that one evening
he also went a-walking there, and met Evelina. He had entered the
lane from the highway, and she from the fields at the head. So he saw
her first afar off, and could not tell fairly whether her light
muslin skirt might not be only a white-flowering bush. For, since his
outlook upon life had been so full of Evelina, he had found that
often the most common and familiar things would wear for a second a
look of her to startle him. And many a time his heart had leaped at
the sight of a white bush ahead stirring softly in the evening wind,
and he had thought it might be she. Now he said to himself
impatiently that this was only another fancy; but soon he saw that it
was indeed Evelina, in a light muslin gown, with a little lace
kerchief on her head. His handsome young face was white; his lips
twitched nervously; but he reached out and pulled a spray of white
flowers from a bush, and swung it airily to hide his agitation as he
advanced.

As for Evelina, when she first espied Thomas she started and half