ll grace
and beauty! As I gazed with all my eyes, I found more than grace and
beauty in that wonderful face,--found pride, wit, fire, determination,
finally shame and anger. For, feeling my eyes upon her, she looked up
and met what she must have thought the impudent stare of an appraiser.
Her face, which had been without color, pale and clear like the sky
about the evening star, went crimson in a moment. She bit her lip and
shot at me one withering glance, then dropped her eyelids and hid the
lightning. When I looked at her again, covertly, and from under my hand
raised as though to push back my hair, she was pale once more, and her
dark eyes were fixed upon the water and the green trees without the
window.

The congregation rose, and she stood up with the other maids. Her dress
of dark woolen, severe and unadorned, her close ruff and prim white
coif, would have cried "Puritan," had ever Puritan looked like this
woman, upon whom the poor apparel had the seeming of purple and ermine.

Anon came the benediction. Governor, Councilors, commanders, and
ministers left the choir and paced solemnly down the aisle; the maids
closed in behind; and we who had lined the walls, shifting from one heel
to the other for a long two hours, brought up the rear, and so passed
from the church to a fair green meadow adjacent thereto. Here the
company disbanded; the wearers of gold lace betaking themselves to seats
erected in the shadow of a mighty oak, and the ministers, of whom there
were four, bestowing themselves within pulpits of turf. For one altar
and one clergyman could not hope to dispatch that day's business.

As for the maids, for a minute or more they made one cluster; then,
shyly or with laughter, they drifted apart like the petals of a
wind-blown rose, and silk doublet and hose gave chase. Five minutes saw
the goodly company of damsels errant and would-be bridegrooms scattered
far and near over the smiling meadow. For the most part they went man
and maid, but the fairer of the feminine cohort had rings of clamorous
suitors from whom to choose. As for me, I walked alone; for if by chance
I neared a maid, she looked (womanlike) at my apparel first, and never
reached my face, but squarely turned her back. So disengaged, I felt
like a guest at a mask, and in some measure enjoyed the show, though
with an uneasy consciousness that I was pledged to become, sooner or
later, a part of the spectacle. I saw a shepherdess fresh from Arcad