But the parson hardly heeded her. He was far away. "Mary Ellen," he broke out suddenly, a smile running warmly over his face, and creasing his dry, hollow cheeks, "do you remember that other sermon, my trial one? I read it to you, and then I read it to Parson Sibley. And do you remember what he said?"
"Yes, I remember. I didn't suppose you did." Her cheeks were pink. The corners of her mouth grew exquisitely tender.
"You knew I did! 'Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes.' I took that text because I couldn't think of anything else all summer. I remember now it seemed to me as if I was in a garden—always in a garden. The moon was pretty bright, that summer. There were more flowers blooming than common. It must have been a good year. And I wrote my sermon lying out in the pine woods, down where you used to sit hemming on your things. And I thought it was the Church, but do all I could, it was a girl—or an angel!"
"No, no!" cried Mary Ellen, in bitterness of entreaty.
"And then I read the sermon to you under the pines, and you stopped sewing, and looked off into the trees; and you said 't was beautiful. But I carried it to old Parson Sibley that night, and I can see just how he looked sitting there in his study, with his great spectacles pushed up on his forehead, and his hand drumming on a book. He had the dictionary put in a certain place on his table because he found he'd got used to drumming on the Bible, and he was a very particular man. And when I got through reading the sermon, his face wrinkled all up, though he didn't laugh out loud, and he came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. 'William,' says he, 'you go home and write a doctrinal sermon, the stiffest you can. This one's about a girl. You might give it to Mary Ellen North for a wedding-present.'"
The parson had grown almost gay under the vivifying influence of memory. But Mary Ellen did not smile.
"Yes," she repeated softly, "I remember."
"And then I laughed a little, and got out of the study the best way I could, and ran over to you to tell you what he said. And I left the sermon in your work-basket. I've often wished, in the light of what came afterwards—I've often wished I'd kept it. Somehow 't would have brought me nearer to you."
It seemed as if she were about to rise from her chair, but she quieted herself and dulled the responsive look upon her face.
"Mary Ellen," the parson burst forth, "I know how I took what came on us the very next week, but I never knew how you took it. Should you just as lieves tell me?"