the churches down-town, and Main Street the principal avenue of
communication between them and the "residence section." So, to-day,
the intermittent procession stretched along the new cement side-walks
from a little below the Square to Upper Main Street, where maples lined
the thoroughfare and the mansions of the affluent stood among pleasant
lawns and shrubberies. It was late; for this had been a communion
Sunday, and those far in advance, who had already reached the pretty
and shady part of the street, were members of the churches where
services had been shortest; though few in the long parade looked as if
they had been attending anything very short, and many heads of families
were crisp in their replies to the theological inquiries of their
offspring. The men imparted largely a gloom to the itinerant
concourse, most of them wearing hot, long black coats and having wilted
their collars; the ladies relieving this gloom somewhat by the lighter
tints of their garments; the spick-and-span little girls relieving it
greatly by their white dresses and their faces, the latter bright with
the hope of Sunday ice-cream; while the boys, experiencing some solace
in that they were finally out where a person could at least scratch
himself if he had to, yet oppressed by the decorous necessities of the
day, marched along, furtively planning, behind imperturbably secretive
countenances, various means for the later dispersal of an odious
monotony.

Usually the conversation of this long string of the homeward-bound was
not too frivolous or worldly; nay, it properly inclined to discussion
of the sermon; that is, praise of the sermon, with here and there a
mild "I-didn't-like-his-saying" or so; and its lighter aspects were apt
to concern the next "Social," or various pleasurable schemes for the
raising of funds to help the heathen, the quite worthy poor, or the
church.

This was the serious and seemly parade, the propriety of whose behavior
was to-day almost disintegrated when the lady of the bridge walked up
the street in the shadow of a lacy, lavender parasol carried by Joseph
Louden. The congregation of the church across the Square, that to
which Joe's step-aunt had been late, was just debouching, almost in
mass, upon Main Street, when these two went by. It is not quite the
truth to say that all except the children came to a dead halt, but it
is not very far from it. The air was thick with subdued exclamations
and whisperings.