net of fine straw, trimmed
simply enough with a white ribbon, but over her face hung a white
veil of rich lace, and through it her pink cheeks and lips and great
blue eyes and lines of golden hair shone and bloomed and dazzled like
a rose through a frosted window.

Lucina Merritt was a rare beauty, and she knew it, from her
looking-glass as well as the eyes of others, and dealt with herself
meekly wherewithal, and prayed innocently that she might consider
more the embellishment of her heart and her mind than her person, and
not to be too well pleased at the admiring looks of those whom she
met. Indeed, it was to this end that she wore the white veil over her
face, though not one of the maiden mates would believe that. She
fancied that it somewhat dimmed her beauty, and that folk were less
given to staring at her, not realizing that it added to her graces
that subtlest one of suggestion, and that folk but stared the harder
to make sure whether they saw or imagined such charms.

Jerome Edwards saw this beautiful Lucina coming, and it was suddenly
as if he entered a new atmosphere. He did not know why, but he
started as if he had gotten a shock, and his heart beat hard.

Squire Merritt made as if he would greet him in his usual hearty
fashion, but remembering the day, and hearing, too, the first strains
of the opening hymn from the meeting-house, for the bell had stopped
tolling, he gave him only a friendly nod as he passed on with his
wife. Miss Camilla inclined her head with soft graciousness; but
Jerome looked at none of them except Lucina. She did not remember
him; she glanced slightly at his face, and then her long fair lashes
swept again the soft bloom of her cheeks, and her silken skirts
fairly touched him as she passed. Jerome stood still after they had
all entered the meeting-house; the long drone of the hymn sounded
very loud in his ears.

He made a motion towards the meeting-house, hesitated, made another,
then turned decidedly to the road. It seemed suddenly to him that his
clothes must be soiled and dusty after his work in John Upham's
house, that his hair could not be smooth, that he did not look well
enough to go to meeting. So he went home, yielding for the first
time, without knowing that he did so, to that decorative impulse
which comes to men and birds alike when they would woo their mates.

Chapter XXII

The next morning Jerome went early to his uncle Ozias Lamb for some
finished shoes,