minister of the gospel. And as for myself, I know not what Mistress
Perkins would say to me. She has a mind much above me, I fear."

"Mistress Perkins is enjoying her mind in Boston," said Thomas
Merriam, with the laugh of a triumphant young lover.

But Evelina did not laugh. "It might be well for both you and me if
she were here," said she, seriously. However, she tempered a little
her decorous following of Mistress Perkins's precepts, and she and
Thomas went hand in hand up the lane and across the fields.

There was no dew that night, and the moon was full. It was after nine
o'clock when Thomas left her at the gate in the fence which separated
Evelina Adams's garden from the field, and watched her disappear
between the flowers. The moon shone full on the garden. Evelina
walked as it were over a silver dapple, which her light gown seemed
to brush away and dispel for a moment. The bushes stood in sweet
mysterious clumps of shadow.

Evelina had almost reached the house, and was close to the great
althea bush, which cast a wide circle of shadow, when it seemed
suddenly to separate and move into life.

The elder Evelina stepped out from the shadow of the bush. "Is that
you, Evelina?" she said, in her soft, melancholy voice, which had in
it a nervous vibration.

"Yes, Cousin Evelina."

The elder Evelina's pale face, drooped about with gray curls, had an