and flees
at the sight. It had happened once when he was coming down the aisle
after the sermon and Evelina had met him at the door of her pew. But
she had turned her head quickly, and her soft curls flowed over her
red cheek, and he doubted ever after if he had read the look aright.
When he had gotten the courage to speak to her, and she had met him
with the gentle coldness which she had learned of her lady aunt and
her teacher in Boston, his doubt was strong upon him. The next Sunday
he looked not her way at all. He even tried faithfully from day to
day to drive her image from his mind with prayer and religious
thoughts, but in spite of himself he would lapse into dreams about
her, as if borne by a current of nature too strong to be resisted.
And sometimes, upon being awakened from them, as he sat over his
sermon with the ink drying on his quill, by the sudden outburst of
treble voices in his mother's sitting-room below, the fancy would
seize him that possibly these other young damsels took fond liberties
with him in their dreams, as he with Evelina, and he resented it with
a fierce maidenliness of spirit, although he was a man. The thought
that possibly they, over their spinning or their quilting, had in
their hearts the image of himself with fond words upon his lips and
fond looks in his eyes, filled him with shame and rage, although he
took the same liberty with the delicately haughty maiden Evelina.

But Thomas Merriam was not given to undue appreciation of his own
fascination, as was proved by his ready discouragement in the case of
Evelina. He had the knowledge of his conquests forced upon his
understanding until he could no longer evade it. Every day were
offerings laid upon his shrine, of pound-cakes and flaky pies, and
loaves of white bread, and cups of jelly, whereby the culinary skill
of his devotees might be proved. Silken purses and beautiful socks
knitted with fancy stitches, and holy book-marks for his Bible, and
even a wonderful bedquilt, and a fine linen shirt with hem-stitched
bands, poured in upon him. He burned with angry blushes when his
mother, smiling meaningly, passed them over to him. "Put them away,
mother; I don't want them," he would growl out, in a distress that
was half comic and half pathetic. He would never taste of the
tempting viands which were brought to him. "How you act, Thomas!" his
mother would say. She was secretly elated by these feminine libations
upon the altar of her son.