Sunday feeling. It is the very feeling in
which God Himself rested; and out of his own joy, bade all his sons
rest likewise in their turn, every time that they should end a six
days' toil.

Frank Sunderline had been in Boston all the afternoon, making up
accounts and papers with his employer. He came round to Pilgrim
Street to tea.

He had got into a way of coming in to tell the Ingrahams the story
of his work as it went on, at the same time that he continued his
friendly relation with their own affairs, as always ready to do any
little turn for them in which a man could be of service. This Sunday
rest of his,--though a busier day had not gone over his head since
the week began,--must be shared and crowned by them.

There is no subtler test of an unspoken--perhaps an
unexamined--relation of a man with his women friends, than this
instinctive turning with his Sabbath content and rest to the
companionship he feels himself most moved to when it is in his
heart. All custom, however homely, grows out of some reality, more
than out of any mere convenience; this is why the Sunday coming of
the country lover means so much more than his common comings, and
sets an established seal upon them all.

Walking down Roulstone Street, the lowering afternoon sun full in
his face across the open squares, Frank Sunderline thought how
pleasant it would be to have Ray Ingraham go out to Pomantic such an
afternoon as this, and see what he had done; just now, while it was
still his work, warm from his hand, and before it was shut away from
her and him by the Newrich carpets and curtains and china and
servants going in and fastening the doors upon them.

He would make a treat of it,--a holiday,--if she would go; he would
come and take her with a horse and buggy. He would not ask her to go
with him in the cars and be stared at.

He had never thought of asking her to go to ride, or of showing her
any set "attention" before. Frank Sunderline was not one of the
young fellows who begin, and begin in a hurry, at that end.

He walked faster, as it came into his head at that moment; something
of the same perception that would come to her,--if she cared for
this asking of his,--came to him with the sudden suggestion that it
was the next, the natural thing to do; that their friendship had
grown so far as that. The story comes to a man with some such
beautiful, scarce-anticipated steps of revelation as it does to a
woman, when he takes his life