the end, though it failed to do so to-day. The Baxters
occupied one of the wing pews, a position always to be envied, as one
could see the singers without turning around, and also observe everybody
in the congregation,--their entrance, garments, behavior, and especially
their bonnets,--without being in the least indiscreet, or seeming to
have a roving eye.

Lawyer Wilson's pew was the second in front of the Baxters in the same
wing, and Patty, seated decorously but unwillingly beside her father,
was impatiently awaiting the entrance of the family, knowing that Mark
would be with them if he had returned from Boston. Timothy Grant, the
parish clerk, had the pew in between, and afforded a most edifying
spectacle to the community, as there were seven young Grants of a
church-going age, and the ladies of the congregation were always
counting them, reckoning how many more were in their cradles at home
and trying to guess from Mrs. Grant's lively or chastened countenance
whether any new ones had been born since the Sunday before.

Patty settled herself comfortably, and put her foot on the wooden
"cricket," raising her buff calico a little on the congregation side,
just enough to show an inch or two of petticoat. The petticoat was
as modestly long as the frock itself, and disclosing a bit of it was
nothing more heinous than a casual exhibition of good needlework.
Deacon Baxter furnished only the unbleached muslin for his daughters'
undergarments; but twelve little tucks laboriously done by hand,
elaborate inch-wide edging, crocheted from white spool cotton, and days
of bleaching on the grass in the sun, will make a petticoat that can be
shown in church with some justifiable pride.

The Wilsons came up the aisle a moment later than was their usual
habit, just after the parson had ascended the pulpit. Mrs. Wilson always
entered the pew first and sat in the far end. Patty had looked at her
admiringly, and with a certain feeling of proprietorship, for several
Sundays. There was obviously no such desirable mother-in-law in the
meeting-house. Her changeable silk dress was the latest mode; her shawl
of black llama lace expressed wealth in every delicate mesh, and her
bonnet had a distinction that could only have emanated from Portland or
Boston. Ellen Wilson usually came in next, with as much of a smile to
Patty in passing as she dared venture in the Deacon's presence, and
after her sidled in her younger sister Selina, commonly call