youthful bloom as her general qualities of mind and heart: her
cheeriness, her spirit, her unflagging zeal, her bright womanliness. Her
grey dress was turned up in front over a crimson moreen petticoat. She
had on a cosy jacket, a fur turban of some sort with a redbreast in it,
and her cheeks were flushed from exertion. "Sweet records, and promises
as sweet," had always met in Nancy's face, and either he had forgotten
how pretty she was, or else she had absolutely grown prettier during his
absence.

Nancy would have chosen the supreme moment of meeting very differently,
but she might well have chosen worse. She unpinned her skirt and brushed
the threads off, smoothed the pew cushions carefully, and took a last
stitch in the ragged hassock. She then lifted the Bible and the hymn-
book from the rack, and putting down a bit of flannel on the pulpit
steps, took a flatiron from an oil-stove, and opening the ancient books,
pressed out the well-thumbed leaves one by one with infinite care. After
replacing the volumes in their accustomed place, she first extinguished
the flame of her stove, which she tucked out of sight, and then blew out
the lamp and the candle. The church was still light enough for objects
to be seen in a shadowy way, like the objects in a dream, and Justin did
not realize that he was a man in the flesh, looking at a woman; spying,
it might be, upon her privacy. He was one part of a dream and she
another, and he stood as if waiting, and fearing, to be awakened.

Nancy, having done all, came out of the pew, and standing in the aisle,
looked back at the scene of her labours with pride and content. And as
she looked, some desire to stay a little longer in the dear old place
must have come over her, or some dread of going back to her lonely
cottage, for she sat down in Justin's corner of the pew with folded
hands, her eyes fixed dreamily on the pulpit and her ears hearing: "Not