n they were called home in church
last Sunday?" came downwards again in Mrs. Penny's voice.

"Ay, that they did, my sonnies!--especially the first time. There was a
terrible whispering piece of work in the congregation, wasn't there,
neighbour Penny?" said the tranter, taking up the thread of conversation
on his own account and, in order to be heard in the room above, speaking
very loud to Mr. Penny, who sat at the distance of three feet from him,
or rather less.

"I never can mind seeing such a whispering as there was," said Mr. Penny,
also loudly, to the room above. "And such sorrowful envy on the maidens'
faces; really, I never did see such envy as there was!"

Fancy's lineaments varied in innumerable little flushes, and her heart
palpitated innumerable little tremors of pleasure. "But perhaps," she
said, with assumed indifference, "it was only because no religion was
going on just then?"

"O, no; nothing to do with that. 'Twas because of your high standing in
the parish. It was just as if they had one and all caught Dick kissing
and coling ye to death, wasn't it, Mrs. Dewy?"

"Ay; that 'twas."

"How people will talk about one's doings!" Fancy exclaimed.

"Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can't blame other
people for singing 'em."

"Mercy me! how shall I go through it?" said the young lady again, but
merely to those in the bedroom, with a breathing of a kind between a sigh
and a pant, round shining eyes, and warm face.

"O, you'll get through it well enough, child," said Mrs. Dewy placidly.
"The edge of the performance is took off at the calling home; and when
once you get up to the chancel end o' the church, you feel as saucy as
you please. I'm sure I felt as brave as a sodger all through the
deed--though of course I dropped my face and looked modest, as was
becoming to a maid. Mind you do that, Fancy."

"And I walked into the church as quiet as a lamb, I'm sure," subjoined
Mrs. Penny. "There, you see Penny is such a little small man. But
certainly, I was flurried in the inside o' me. Well, thinks I, 'tis to
be, and here goes! And do you do the same: say, ''Tis to be, and here
goes!'"

"Is there such wonderful virtue in ''Tis to be, and here goes!'" inquired
Fancy.

"Wonderful! 'Twill carry a body through it all from wedding to
churching, if you only let it out with spirit enough."

"Very well, then," said Fancy, blushing. "'Tis to be, and here goes!"

"That's a gir