been sallow and bloodless. When the door
had closed he could hear the voice, now strong again. He seemed to be,
as during the night, rehearsing something he meant to say. And later it
was plain that he prayed, though he heard nothing more than the high
pleading of the voice.

Follett would not have minded these things, but Prudence was gone and no
one could tell him where. From Christina of the rock-bound speech he
blasted the items that she was wearing "a dress all new" and "a
red-ribbon hat." Lorena, too, with all her willingness of speech, knew
nothing definite.

"All I know is she fixed herself up like she was going to an evening
ball or party. I wish to the lands I'd kep' my complexion the way she
does hern. And she had on her best lawn that her pa got her in Salt
Lake, the one with the little blue figures in it. She does look sweeter
than honey on a rag in a store dress, and that Leghorn hat with the red
bow, though what she wanted to start so early for I don't know. The
procession can't be along yet, but she might have gone down to march
with them, or to help decorate the bowery. I know when I was her age I
was always a great hand for getting ready long before any one come, when
my mother was making a company for me, putting up my waterfall and
curling my beau-catchers on a hot pipe-stem. But, land! I ain't no time
to talk with _you_."

Down at the main road he hesitated. To the right he could see where the
green mouth of the canon invited; but to the left lay the village where
Prudence doubtless was. He would find her and bring her away. For
Follett had determined to toe the mark himself now.

In the one street of Amalon there was the usual Sabbath hush; but above
this was an air of dignified festivity. The village in its Sunday best
homespun, with here and there a suit of store goods, was holding its
breath. In the bowery a few workers, under the supervision of Bishop
Wright, were adding the last touches of decoration. It was a spot of
pleasant green in the dusty square--a roof of spruce boughs, with
evergreens and flowers garnishing the posts, and a bank of flowers and
fruit back of the speaker's stand.

But Prudence was not there, and he wondered with dismay if she had
joined the rest of the village and gone out to meet the Prophet. He had
seen the last of them going along the dusty road to the north, men and
women and little children, hot, excited, and eager. It did not seem like
her to be among them,