ways as the young minister bent over
his sermon-paper, laboriously tracing out with sputtering quill his
application of the articles of the orthodox faith, Evelina's blue
eyes seemed to look out at him between the stern doctrines like the
eyes of an angel. And he could not turn the pages of the Holy Writ
unless he found some passage therein which to his mind treated
directly of her, setting forth her graces like a prophecy. "The
fairest among women," read Thomas Merriam, and nodded his head, while
his heart leaped with the satisfied delight of all its fancies, at
the image of his love's fair and gentle face. "Her price is far above
rubies," read Thomas Merriam, and he nodded his head again, and saw
Evelina shining as with gold and pearls, more precious than all the
jewels of the earth. In spite of all his efforts, when Thomas Merriam
studied the Scriptures in those days he was more nearly touched by
those old human hearts which throbbed down to his through the ages,
welding the memories of their old loves to his living one until they
seemed to prove its eternity, than by the Messianic prophecies. Often
he spent hours upon his knees, but arose with Evelina's face before
his very soul in spite of all.

And as for Evelina, she tended the flowers in the elder Evelina's
garden with her poor cousin, whose own love-dreams had been
illustrated as it were by the pinks and lilies blooming around them
when they had all gone out of her heart, and Thomas Merriam's
half-bold, half-imploring eyes looked up at her out of every flower
and stung her heart like bees. Poor young Evelina feared much lest
she had offended Thomas, and yet her own maiden decorum had been
offended by him, and she had offended it herself, and she was faint
with shame and distress when she thought of it. How had she been so
bold and shameless as to give him that look at the meeting-house? and
how had he been so cruel as to accost her afterwards? She told
herself she had done right for the maintenance of her own maiden
dignity, and yet she feared lest she had angered him and hurt him.
"Suppose he had been fretted by her coolness?" she thought, and then
a great wave of tender pity went over her heart, and she would almost
have spoken to him of her own accord. But then she would reflect how
he continued to write such beautiful sermons, and prove so clearly
and logically the tenets of the faith; and how could he do that with
a mind in distress? Scarcely could she he