ore like that
of a brother and sister who had been separated all their lives and were
just beginning to get acquainted, and ever there was a settled sadness
about the lines of David's mouth and eyes. They sat around one table now,
the evenings when they were at home, for there were still occasional
tea-drinkings at their friends' houses; and there was one night a week
held religiously for a formal supper with the aunts, which David kindly
acquiesced in--more for the sake of his Aunt Clarinda than the
others,--whenever he was not detained by actual business. Then, too, there
was the weekly prayer meeting held at "early candle light" in the dim old
shadowed church. They always walked down the twilighted streets together,
and it seemed to Marcia there was a sweet solemnity about that walk. They
never said much to each other on the way. David seemed preoccupied with
holy thoughts, and Marcia walked softly beside him as if he had been the
minister, looking at him proudly and reverently now and then. David was
often called upon to pray in meeting and Marcia loved to listen to his
words. He seemed to be more intimate with God than the others, who were
mostly old men and prayed with long, rolling, solemn sentences that put
the whole community down into the dust and ashes before their Creator.

Marcia rather enjoyed the hour spent in the sombreness of the church, with
the flickering candle light making grotesque forms of shadows on the wall
and among the tall pews. The old minister reminded her of the one she had
left at home, though he was more learned and scholarly, and when he had
read the Scripture passages he would take his spectacles off and lay them
across the great Bible where the candle light played at glances with the
steel bows, and say: "Let us pray!" Then would come that soft stir and
hush as the people took the attitude of prayer. Marcia sometimes joined in
the prayer in her heart, uttering shy little petitions that were vague and
indefinite, and had to do mostly with the days when she was troubled and
homesick, and felt that David belonged wholly to Kate. Always her clear
voice joined in the slow hymns that quavered out now and again, lined out
to the worshippers.

Marcia and David went out from that meeting down the street to their home
with the hush upon them that must have been upon the Israelites of old
after they had been to the solemn congregation.

But once David had come in earlier than usual and had caug