tting-work; and the Colonel's
daughter looked up with a shy smile at Henry Mowers fastening his
horse by the corn-barn. It was time Sunday was over, indeed! Such a
long supper! but it must end sometime!--and then prayers, and then
Dorcas had amused herself with Bel and the Dragon and Tobit awhile.
All would not do, and the family had been obliged to resort to the
sweet restorer for the last ten minutes. Now they could think their
own thoughts in peace, and talk of what interested them,--cattle,
people, and the like. Poor Dorcas! what with Father Boardman's
preaching, and the Westminster Catechism, she associated religion with
all that was dull and inexplicable, though she did not doubt it was
good in case of dying. In the Nature and life that surrounded her
she had not seen God, but a refuge from Him. In the crimson floods
of sunshine, in the brilliant moonrise, or the pulsating stars of a
winter night, she found a sort of guilty relief from the dulness of
what she supposed was Revelation. But she never thought of questioning
or doubting any teachings, in the pulpit or out. A woman cannot, like
a man, fight a subject down. Her intellect shrinks from being tossed
and pierced on the pricks of doctrine. She is gentle and cowardly. She
sets the matter aside, and is contented to wait till she dies to
find out. But the men in Walton were all theologians, and sharp at
polemics. In the bar-room the spirit of liberty throve, which was
crushed in the pulpit. In that small New-England town, where, like
a great white sheep, Father Boardman now led his docile flock to the
fold, whoever looked long enough would see many new folds and many new
shepherds. Every shape of religious thinking will have its exponent,
and the widest liberty be claimed and enjoyed. Though he slept through
Father Boardman's sermons, it is doubtful if Henry Mowers did not in
his dreams lay the corner-stone of the new meeting-house on the hill.

Monday, and the hurly-burly of washing over. Dorcas had nearly
finished her "stent" on the little wheel. As she sat by the open door,
diligently trotting her foot, and softly pulling the last flax from
her distaff, her glance went hastily and often towards the setting
sun. She could see beyond the sloping orchard, no longer loaded
with fruit, the Great Meadows, extending along the banks of the
Connecticut. She could see on the eastern side great white mountains,
that went modestly by the name of hills, and that came in a