rustics, a nonparella of all grace and beauty! As I gazed with all
my eyes, I found more than grace and beauty in that wonderful
face, - found pride, wit, fire, determination, finally shame and
anger. For, feeling my eyes upon her, she looked up and met what
she must have thought the impudent stare of an appraiser. Her
face, which had been without color, pale and clear like the sky
about the evening star, went crimson in a moment. She bit her lip
and shot at me one withering glance, then dropped her eyelids and
hid the lightning. When I looked at her again, covertly, and from
under my hand raised as though to push back my hair, she was pale
once more, and her dark eyes were fixed upon the water and the
green trees without the window.

The congregation rose, and she stood up with the other maids. Her
dress of dark woolen, severe and unadorned, her close ruff and
prim white coif, would have cried "Puritan," had ever Puritan
looked like this woman, upon whom the poor apparel had the
seeming of purple and ermine.

Anon came the benediction. Governor, Councilors, commanders,
and ministers left the choir and paced solemnly down the aisle; the
maids closed in behind; and we who had lined the walls, shifting
from one heel to the other for a long two hours, brought up the
rear, and so passed from the church to a fair green meadow
adjacent thereto. Here the company disbanded; the wearers of gold
lace betaking themselves to seats erected in the shadow of a
mighty oak, and the ministers, of whom there were four, bestowing
themselves within pulpits of turf. For one altar and one clergyman
could not hope to dispatch that day's business.