"What _does_ this mean?" I whispered to Cousin E. E.

"The prayer is over," says she.

"Over!" says I. "Why, the minister hadn't begun to tell the Lord what
sinners we all are."

"Oh!" says she, almost laughing out in meeting, "that would be too heavy
work for one man. Only think how much of it there is to represent in
this place."

"Cousin," says I, "your levity in this sacred place shocks me."

"Sacred place," says she. "Oh, Phoemie, you will be the death of me."

"Have you no regard for your own soul?" says I, in an austere whisper
that ought to have riled up the depths of her conscience.

"My soul, indeed!" says she, with her eyes and her lips all a-quivering
with fun; "as if people ever thought of such things here."

I dropped into my seat--her sinful levity took away my breath.

The woman absolutely began to talk out loud, and didn't even stop when a
man got up in the congregation and began to exhort. In the distress her
conduct gave me I did not hear just what he said, but at last he held
out a paper. A handsome little boy came up and carried it toward the
pulpit and gave it to one of the deacons.

Up to this time I had thought the congregation Presbyterians, but the
boy puzzled me. I remembered the little fellow in red at that High
Church service, and thought perhaps the good old New England stand-by
meeting had got some of these new-fangled additions to their board of
deacons. The thought troubled me, but not so much as the conduct of
that congregation. The ladies in the gallery behaved shamefully--I must
say it. They whispered, they laughed, they flirted their fans and
flirted with their lips and eyes. Sometimes they turned their backs on
the congregation downstairs. They kept moving about from one seat to
another. In fact, I cannot describe the actions of these females. The
idea of piety never entered one of their heads--I am sure of that.

There must have been a good many notices and publishments to give out;
more than I ever heard of in our meeting-house, for ever so many papers
were sent up to the pulpit, where another minister sat now ready to
begin his sermon.

I must own it, there was some confusion among the congregation in the
body of the church. The members moved about more than was decorous, and
there was whispering a-going on there as well.

In Vermont the minister would have rebuked his congregation--especially
the flighty females around me.

I was saying this to Cousin E. E. wh