rself tend the flower-beds
as she should, nor set her embroidery stitches finely and evenly, she
was so ill at ease. It must be that Thomas had not given the matter
an hour's worry, since he continued to do his work so faithfully and
well. And then her own heart would be sorer than ever with the belief
that his was happy and at rest, although she would chide herself for
it.

And yet this young Evelina was a philosopher and an analyst of human
nature in a small way, and she got some slight comfort out of a
shrewd suspicion that the heart of a man might love and suffer on a
somewhat different principle from the heart of a woman. "It may be,"
thought Evelina, sitting idle over her embroidery with far-away blue
eyes, "that a man's heart can always turn a while from love to other
things as weighty and serious, although he be just as fond, while a
woman's heart is always fixed one way by loving, and cannot be turned
unless it breaks. And it may be wise," thought young Evelina, "else
how could the state be maintained and governed, battles for
independence be fought, and even souls be saved, and the gospel
carried to the heathen, if men could not turn from the concerns of
their own hearts more easily than women? Women should be patient,"
thought Evelina, "and consider that if they suffer 't is due to the
lot which a wise Providence has given them." And yet tears welled up
in her earnest blue eyes and fell over her fair cheeks and wet the
embroidery--when the elder Evelina was not looking, as she seldom
was. The elder Evelina was kind to her young cousin, but there were
days when she seemed to dwell alone in her own thoughts, apart from
the whole world, and she seldom spoke either to Evelina or her old
servant-man.

Young Evelina, trying to atone for her former indiscretion and
establish herself again on her height of maiden reserve in Thomas
Merriam's eyes, sat resolutely in the meeting-house of a Sabbath day,
with her eyes cast down, and after service she glided swiftly down
the aisle and was out of the door before the young minister could
much more than descend the pulpit stairs, unless he ran an indecorous
race.

And young Evelina never at twilight strolled up the road in the
direction of Thomas Merriam's home, where she might quite reasonably
hope to meet him, since he was wont to go to the store when the
evening stage-coach came in with the mail from Boston.

Instead she paced the garden paths, or, when there was no