Audrey

Of the gathering, which was not large, two thirds, perhaps, were people of

condition; and in the country, where occasions for display did not present

themselves uncalled, it was highly becoming to worship the Lord in fine

clothes. So there were broken rainbows in the tall pews, with a soft

waving of fans to and fro in the essenced air, and a low rustle of silk.

The men went as fine as the women, and the June sunshine, pouring in upon

all this lustre and color, made a flower-bed of the assemblage. Being of

the country, it was vastly better behaved than would have been a

fashionable London congregation; but it certainly saw no reason why Mr.

Marmaduke Haward should not, during the anthem, turn his back upon altar,

minister, and clerk, and employ himself in recognizing with a smile and an

inclination of his head his friends and acquaintances. They smiled

back,--the gentlemen bowing slightly, the ladies making a sketch of a

curtsy. All were glad that Fair View house was open once more, and were

kindly disposed toward the master thereof.

The eyes of that gentleman were no longer for the gay parterre. Between it

and the door, in uncushioned pews or on rude benches, were to be found the

plainer sort of Darden's parishioners, and in this territory, that was

like a border of sober foliage to the flower-bed in front, he discovered

whom he sought.

Her gaze had been upon him since he passed the minister's pew, where she

stood between my Lady Squander's ex-waiting-woman and the branded

schoolmaster, but now their eyes came full together. She was dressed in

some coarse dark stuff, above which rose the brown pillar of her throat

and the elusive, singular beauty of her face. There was a flower in her

hair, placed as he had placed the rosebuds. A splendor leaped into her

eyes, but her cheek did not redden; it was to his face that the color

rushed. They had but a moment in which to gaze at each other, for the

singing, which to her, at least, had seemed suddenly to swell into a great

ascending tide of sound, with somewhere, far away, the silver calling of a

trumpet, now came to an end, and with another silken rustle and murmur

the congregation sat down.

Haward did not turn again, and the service went drowsily on. Darden was

bleared of eye and somewhat thick of voice; the clerk's whine was as

sleepy a sound as the buzzing of the bees in and out of window, or the

soft, incessant stir of painted fans. A churchwarden in the next pew

nodded and nodded, until he nodded his peruke awry, and a child went fast

asleep, with its head in its mother's lap. One and all worshiped somewhat

languidly, with frequent glances at the hourglass upon the pulpit. They

prayed for King George the First, not knowing that he was dead, and for

the Prince, not knowing that he was King. The minister preached against

Quakers and witchcraft, and shook the rafters with his fulminations.

Finally came the benediction and a sigh of relief.