ad never had a son to inherit her beauty. He had
certainly a delicate brilliancy of complexion, which he could have
gotten directly from neither father nor mother; and whence came that
little nervous frown between his dark blue eyes? His mother had blue
eyes, but not like his; they flashed over the great pulpit Bible with
a sweet fire that matched the memory in his father's heart.

But the old man put the fancy away from him in a minute; it was one
which his stern common-sense always overcame. It was impossible that
Thomas Merriam should resemble Evelina Adams; indeed, people always
called him the very image of his father.

The father tried to fix his mind upon his son's sermon, but presently
he glanced involuntarily across the meeting-house at the young girl,
and again his heart leaped and his face paled; but he turned his eyes
gravely back to the pulpit, and his wife did not notice. Now and then
she thrust a sharp elbow in his side to call his attention to a grand
point in their son's discourse. The odor of peppermint was strong in
his nostrils, but through it all he seemed to perceive the rose and
lavender scent of Evelina Adams's youthful garments. Whether it was
with him simply the memory of an odor, which affected him like the
odor itself, or not, those in the vicinity of the Squire's pew were
plainly aware of it. The gown which the strange young girl wore was,
as many an old woman discovered to her neighbor with loud whispers,
one of Evelina's, which had been laid away in a sweet-smelling chest
since her old girlhood. It had been somewhat altered to suit the
fashion of a later day, but the eyes which had fastened keenly upon
it when Evelina first wore it up the meeting-house aisle could not
mistake it. "It's Evelina Adams's lavender satin made over," one
whispered, with a sharp hiss of breath, in the other's ear.

The lavender satin, deepening into purple in the folds, swept in a
rich circle over the knees of the young girl in the Squire's pew. She
folded her little hands, which were encased in Evelina's
cream-colored silk mitts, over it, and looked up at the young
minister, and listened to his sermon with a grave and innocent
dignity, as Evelina had done before her. Perhaps the resemblance
between this young girl and the young girl of the past was more one
of mien than aught else, although the type of face was the same. This
girl had the same fine sharpness of feature and delicately bright
color, and she also