ed "Silly,"
and with considerable reason.

Mark had come home! Patty dared not look up, but she felt his approach
behind the others, although her eyes sought the floor, and her cheeks
hung out signals of abashed but certain welcome. She heard the family
settle in their seats somewhat hastily, the click of the pew door and
the sound of Lawyer Wilson's cane as he stood it in the corner; then
the parson rose to pray and Patty closed her eyes with the rest of the
congregation.

Opening them when Elder Boone rose to announce the hymn, they
fell--amazed, resentful, uncomprehending--on the spectacle of Mark
Wilson finding the place in the book for a strange young woman who sat
beside him. Mark himself had on a new suit and wore a seal ring that
Patty had never observed before; while the dress, pelisse, and hat
of the unknown were of a nature that no girl in Patty's position, and
particularly of Patty's disposition, could have regarded without a
desire to tear them from her person and stamp them underfoot; or better
still, flaunt them herself and show the world how they should be worn!

Mark found the place in the hymn-book for the--creature, shared it with
her, and once, when the Grant twins wriggled and Patty secured a better
view, once, Mark shifted his hand on the page so that his thumb touched
that of his pretty neighbor, who did not remove hers as if she found
the proximity either unpleasant or improper. Patty compared her own
miserable attire with that of the hated rival in front, and also
contrasted Lawyer Wilson's appearance with that of her father; the
former, well dressed in the style of a gentleman of the time, in
broadcloth, with fine linen, and a tall silk hat carefully placed on the
floor of the pew; while Deacon Baxter wore homespun made of wool from
his own sheep, spun and woven, dyed and finished, at the fulling-mill in
the village, and carried a battered felt hat that had been a matter of
ridicule these dozen years. (The Deacon would be buried in two coats,
Jed Morrill always said, for he owned just that number, and would be too
mean to leave either of 'em behind him!)

The sermon was fifty minutes long, time enough for a deal of thinking.
Many a housewife, not wholly orthodox, cut and made over all her
children's clothes, in imagination; planned the putting up of her fruit,
the making of her preserves and pickles, and arranged her meals for
the next week, during the progress of those sermons. Patty watch