e
the return from a military funeral, _to_ which men march with sad music
and slow, but _from_ which they return nimbly marching to the most
brilliant quick-step.

In half an hour Norwood was quiet again. The dinner, on Sunday, when for
the sake of the outlying population the two services are brought near
together in the middle of the day, was usually deferred till the
ordinary supper hour. It was evident that the tone of the day was
changed. Children were not so strictly held in. There was no loud
talking, nor was laughing allowed, but a general feeling sprung up
around the table that the severer tasks of the day were ended.

Devout and age-sobered people sat in a kind of golden twilight of
meditation. The minister, in his well-ordered house, tired with a double
service, mingled thoughts both glad and sad. His tasks were ended. He
was conscious that he had manfully done his best. But that best doing,
as he reflected upon it, seemed so poor, so unworthy of the nobleness of
the theme, and so relatively powerless upon the stubborn stuff of which
his people's dispositions were made, that there remained a vague,
unquiet sense of blame upon his conscience.

It was Dr. Wentworth's habit to walk with his family in the garden,
early in the morning and late in the afternoon. If early, Rose was
usually his company; in the afternoon the whole family, Agate Bissell
always excepted. She had in full measure that peculiar New England
feeling that Sunday is to be kept by staying in the house, except such
time as is spent at church. And though she never, impliedly even,
rebuked the doctor's resort to his garden, it was plain that deep down
in her heart she thought it an improper way of spending Sunday; and in
that view she had the secret sympathy of almost all the noteworthy
villagers. Had any one, upon that day, made Agate a visit, unless for
some plain end of necessity or mercy, she would have deemed it a
personal affront.

Sunday was the Lord's day. Agate acted as if any use of it for her own
pleasure would be literal and downright stealing.

"We have six days for our own work. We ought not to begrudge the Lord
one whole day."

Two circumstances distressed honest Agate's conscience. The one was that
the incursion of summer visitors from the city was tending manifestly to
relax the Sabbath, especially after the church services. The other was
that Dr. Wentworth would occasionally allow Judge Bacon to call in and
discuss with hi