cept when Adele broke upon him suddenly and
put him to a momentary confusion, of which the pleasant fluttering of
her own heart gave account,--strange, if this had not won upon her
regard,--strange, if it had not given hint of that cool, masculine
superiority in him, with which even the most ethereal of women like to
be impressed. There was about him also a quiet, business-like
concentration of mind which the imaginative girl might have overlooked
or undervalued, but which the budding, thoughtful woman must needs
recognize and respect. Nor will it seem strange, if, by contrast, it
made the excitable Reuben seem more dismally afloat and vagrant. Yet how
could she forget the passionate pressure of his hand, the appealing
depth of that gray eye of the parson's son, and the burning words of his
that stuck in her memory like thorns?

Phil, indeed, might have spoken in a way that would have driven the
blood back upon her heart; for there was a world of passionate
capability under his calm exterior. She dreaded lest he might. She
shunned all provoking occasion, as a bird shuns the grasp of even the
most tender hand, under whose clasp the pinions will flutter vainly.

When Rose said now, as she was wont to say, after some generous deed of
his, "Phil is a good, kind, noble fellow!" Adele affected not to hear,
and asked Rose, with a bustling air, if she was "quite sure that she had
the right shade of brown" in the worsted work they were upon.

So the Christmas season came and went. The Squire cherished a
traditional regard for its old festivities, not only by reason of a
general festive inclination that was very strong in him, but from a
desire to protest in a quiet way against what he called the pestilent
religious severities of a great many of the parish, who ignored the day
because it was a high holiday in the Popish Church, and in that other,
which, under the wing of Episcopacy, was following, in their view, fast
after the Babylonish traditions. There was Deacon Tourtelot, for
instance, who never failed on a Christmas morning--if weather and
sledding were good--to get up his long team (the restive two-year-olds
upon the neap) and drive through the main street, with a great clamor of
"Haw, Diamond!" and "Gee, Buck and Bright!"--as if to insist upon the
secular character of the day. Indeed, with the old-fashioned New-England
religious faith, an exuberant, demonstrative joyousness could not
gracefully or easily be welded. The