CHAPTER X.
Thus as he spake, his visage waxed pale,
And chaunge of hew great passion did bewray,
Yett still he strove to cloke his inward bale,
And hide the smoke that did his fire display.
SPENSER'S FAERY QUEENE.
The request of Mr. Armstrong, supported by the pleadings of his daughter, prevailed upon Holden to remain to tea, and afterwards to accompany them to the "conference," as a meeting for religious purposes held usually on some particular evening of the week, was called. Upon the conclusion of the service he was to return with them and pass the night at the house of his host. It was not without difficulty he allowed his objections to be overruled, nor was he ever known before to have accepted such an invitation. But it had seemed of late that as his influence with Miss Armstrong increased, so did hers over him, until he became unable to deny her slightest wish. Perhaps, too, the events of the afternoon, by bringing him more intimately into communion with sufferings like those through which he had passed, had softened his sternness and disposed him more for human companionship.
The little building where the "conference" met was of the humblest pretensions. It was a weather-stained, unpainted wooden edifice of one story, standing at no great distance from the meeting-house, and capable of containing comfortably, probably a hundred people. The interior was almost as rude and unattractive as the exterior, the walls being coarsely plastered and dingy with smoke that had escaped from a cast-iron stove which stood in the centre of the room. Benches with backs were placed parallel to one another, and facing a sort of rostrum or reading-desk, to which a passage betwixt the benches led. The inside work was equally innocent of paint as the outside.
On the arrival of Mr. Armstrong with his companions, they found the room only partly occupied, nor had the exercises commenced. According to a custom which would have struck a stranger as singular, but which, doubtless, was founded in a knowledge of the nature of young men and young women, the males were seated on one side of the passage, and the females on the other. The separation, as might be expected, only partly answered the purpose, being unable to arrest the glances which, with quite as much of earth as of heaven in them, crossed the intervening space. These, however, were stolen, and managed in such a quiet way as not materially to affect the devotions of the elders. In compliance with an usage, a breach of which would have violated propriety, Faith, withdrawing her arm from her father's, glided into a seat among her own sex on the right, while Mr. Armstrong and Holden sought places on the left.
The appearance of the Solitary entering the little place of worship, striding up the passage with his usual air of dignity and composure, and taking a seat among the principal members of the church, occasioned great surprise. Although differing little, probably, in religious sentiments (except in one point) from those around him, he had never united with them in religious worship. He was, therefore, notwithstanding his frequent allusions to the Scriptures, considered generally more in the light of a heathen than of a Christian man, and the apparition of Plato or Socrates would hardly have excited more observation. Many, in consequence, were the looks bent on him by those present, and those who afterwards came in.
But of them, or of any sensation caused by his presence, he seemed utterly unconscious. With arms folded and head drooped upon his chest, he shut his eyes and abandoned himself to meditation.
"Massy on us," whispered Miss Green, the mantua-maker, to her next neighbor, Miss Thompson, the tailoress, "if here ain't old Holden. I wonder what fetches him here."
"And did you see!" said Miss Thompson, whispering in like manner, "he came in with the Armstrongs. I always did admire what they could see in him to like."