Captain, with his high-actioned white horse kept out of
eye-shot ahead, it was Mrs. Carrack's fine carriage that had the triumph
of the road to itself, for as it rolled glittering on, the simple
country people, belated in their own preparations, or tarrying at home
to provide the dinner, ran to the windows in wonder and admiration. The
plain wagons, bent in the same direction, turned out of the path and
gave the great coach the better half of the way, staring a broadside as
it passed.

And when the party reached the little meeting-house, what a peace hung
about it! The air seemed softer, the sunshine brighter, there, as it
stood in humble silence among the tall trees which waved with a gentle
murmur before its windows. The people, as they arrived, glided
noiselessly in, in their neat dresses and looks of decent devotion;
others as they came made fast their horses under the sheds and trees
about--most of them in wagons and plain chaises, brightened into all of
beauty they were capable of, by a severe attention to the harness and
mountings; others--these were a few bachelors and striplings--trotted in
quietly on horseback. Before service a few of the old farmers lingered
outside discussing the late crops or inquiring after each other's
families, who presently went within, summoning from the grassy
churchyard--which lay next to the meeting house--the children who were
loitering there reading the grave-stones.

When the Captain arrived with his gig, under such extraordinary headway
that he was near driving across the grave-yard into the next county--the
country people scampered aside, like scared fowl; Mrs. Carrack's great
coach, with its liveried outriders, set them staring as if they did not
or could not believe their own eyes. With the arrival of old Sylvester
they re-gathered, and, almost in a body, proffered their aid to hold the
horses--to help the old Patriarch to the ground--in a word, to show
their regard and affection in every way in their power. He tarried but a
moment at the door, to speak a word with one or two of the oldest of his
neighbors, and passed in, followed by all of his family save Mrs.
Carrack and her son, who under color of hunting up the grave of some
old relation, delay in order to make their appearance in the
meeting-house by themselves, and independently of the Peabody
connection.

Will you pardon me, reader, if I fail to tell you whether this house of
worship was of the Methodist, Episcopal,