his own mother once replied to his audacious worldly protests:

"If thee say thee will never, never, never do a thing, thee will some day
surely do it."

Then, seeing that David was a bit chagrined, Hope slipped one hand into
his, drew him back within the door, lifted the shovel hat off his
forehead, and whispered with a coquetry unworthy a Quaker maid:

"But thee did not say, friend David, thee would never, never, never smite
thy friend on both cheeks after she had flouted thee."

Having smitten her on both cheeks, after the manner of foolish men, David
gravely got him to his home and to a sound sleep that night. Next
morning, the remembrance of the pleasant smiting roused him to an
outwardly sedate and inwardly vainglorious courage. Going with steady
steps to the Friends' meeting-house at the appointed time, the Spirit
moved him, after a decorous pause, to announce his intended marriage to
the prettiest Quaker in Framley, even the maid who had shocked the
community's sense of decorum and had been written down a rebel--though
these things he did not say.

From the recesses of her poke bonnet Hope watched the effect of David's
words upon the meeting; but when the elders turned and looked at her, as
became her judges before the Lord, her eyes dropped; also her heart
thumped so hard she could hear it; and in the silence that followed it
seemed to beat time to the words like the pendulum of a clock: "Fear not-
Love on! Fear not--Love on!" But the heart beat faster still, the eyes
came up quickly, and the face flushed a deep, excited red when David,
rising again, said that, with the consent of the community--a consent