nces of her green shot silk, knew well that Richard's eyes
followed her, and his thought was close at her side.

After she got home from meeting that Sunday, Sylvia Crane did not
know how to pass the time until the evening. She could not keep
herself calm and composed as was her wont on the Sabbath day. She
changed her silk for a common gown; she tried to sit down and read
the Bible quietly and with understanding, but she could not. She
turned to Canticles, and read a page or two. She had always believed
loyally and devoutly in the application to Christ and the Church; but
suddenly now, as she read, the restrained decorously chanting New
England love-song in her maiden heart had leaped into the fervid
measures of the oriental King. She shut the Bible with a clap. "I
ain't giving the right meaning to it," she said, sternly, aloud.

She put away the Bible, went into the pantry, and got out some bread
and cheese for her luncheon, but she could eat nothing. She picked
the apple blossoms and arranged them in the copper-gilt pitcher on
the best-room table. She even dusted off the hair-cloth sofa and
rocker, with many compunctions, because it was Sunday. "I know I
hadn't ought to do it to-day," she murmured, apologetically, "but
they do get terrible dusty, and need dusting every day, and he is
real particular, and he'll have on his best clothes."

Finally, just before twilight, Sylvia, unable to settle herself, had
gone over to her sister's for a little call. Richard never came
before eight o'clock, except in winter, when it was dark earlier.
There was a certain half-shamefaced reserve about his visits. He knew
well enough that people looked from their windows as he passed, and
said, facetiously, "There goes Richard Alger to court Sylvy Crane."
He preferred slipping past in a half-light, in which he did not seem
so plain to himself, and could think himself less plain to other
people.

Sylvia, detained at her sister's by the quarrel between Cephas and
Barnabas, had arisen many a time to take leave, all palpitating with
impatience, but her sister had begged her, in a distressed whisper,
to remain.

"I guess you can get along without Richard Alger one Sunday evening,"
she had said finally, quite aloud, and quite harshly. "I guess your
own sister has just as much claim on you as he has. I dunno what's
going to be done. I don't believe Charlotte's father will let her in
the house to-night."

Poor Sylvia had sunk back in her