hoffspring, and then ye kin say yer prayers hon the t'other side."

Mrs. Mumpson was so overcome at the turn affairs had taken on this day, which
was to witness such progress in her plans and hopes, as to feel the absolute
necessity of a prolonged season of thought and soliloquy, and she relapsed,
without further protest, into the rocking chair.


Chapter XII. Jane

Holcroft was not long in climbing to a sunny nook whence he could see not only
his farm and dwelling, but also the Oakville valley, and the little white
spire of the distant meeting house. He looked at this last-named object
wistfully and very sadly. Mrs. Mumpson's tirade about worship had been
without effect, but the memories suggested by the church were bitter-sweet
indeed. It belonged to the Methodist denomination, and Holcroft had been
taken, or had gone thither, from the time of his earliest recollection. He
saw himself sitting between his father and mother, a round-faced urchin to
whom the sermon was unintelligible, but to whom little Bessie Jones in the
next pew was a fact, not only intelligible, but very interesting. She would
turn around and stare at him until he smiled, then she would giggle until her
mother brought her right-about-face with considerable emphasis. After this,
he saw the little boy--could it have been himself?--nodding, swaying, and
finally slumbering peacefully, with his head on his mother's lap, until shaken
into sufficient consciousness to be half dragged, half led, to the door. Once
in the big, springless farm wagon he was himself again, looking eagerly around
to catch another glimpse of Bessie Jones. Then he was a big, irreverent boy,
shyly and awkwardly bent on mischief in the same old meeting house. Bessie
Jones no longer turned and stared at him, but he exultingly discovered that he
could still make her giggle on the sly. Years passed, and Bessie was his