; if we heard it, we expected some unusual
explanation.

I liked to go to meeting,--not wholly oblivious to the fact that going
there sometimes implied wearing a new bonnet and my best white dress
and muslin "vandyke," of which adornments, if very new, I vainly
supposed the whole congregation to be as admiringly aware as I was
myself.

But my Sabbath-day enjoyment was not wholly without drawbacks. It was
so hard, sometimes, to stand up through the "long prayer," and to sit
still through the "ninthlies," and "tenthlies," and "finallys" of the
sermon! It was impressed upon me that good children were never restless
in meeting, and never laughed or smiled, however their big brothers
tempted them with winks or grimaces. And I did want to be good.

I was not tall enough to see very far over the top of the pew. I think
there were only three persons that came within range of my eyes. One
was a dark man with black curly hair brushed down in "bangs" over his
eyebrows, who sat behind a green baize curtain near the outside door,
peeping out at me, as I thought. I had an impression that he was the
"tidy-man," though that personage had become mythical long before my
day. He had a dragonish look, to me; and I tried never to meet his
glance.

But I did sometimes gaze more earnestly than was polite at a dear,
demure little lady who sat in the corner of the pew next ours, her
downcast eyes shaded by a green calash, and her hidden right hand
gently swaying a long-handled Chinese fan. She was the deacon's wife,
and I felt greatly interested in her movements and in the expression of
her face, because I thought she represented the people they called
"saints," who were, as I supposed, about the same as first cousins to
the angels.

The third figure in sight was the minister. I did not think he ever
saw me; he was talking to the older people,--usually telling them how
wicked they were. He often said to them that there was not one good
person among them; but I supposed he excepted himself. He seemed to me
so very good that I was very much afraid of him. I was a little afraid
of my father, but then he sometimes played with us children: and
besides, my father was only a man. I thought the minister belonged to
some different order of beings. Up there in the pulpit he seemed to me
so far off--oh! a great deal farther off than God did. His distance
made my reverence for him take the form of idolatry. The pulpit was his
pedestal. If any one h