Quietly the congregation gathered. There was not a large company. But few wore the garb of the past generation. There was, among the middle-aged, a disposition to grow a little plainer with increasing years, but the soft felt hat was conspicuous in the room, and the stiff bonnets were relieved by silk shirrs of brown or gray.
Cassy, this warm day, has assumed a gown of white stuff, the very essence of simplicity; a straw bonnet of half modern date, destitute of embellishment, unless the satin ties, reaching halfway to the crown, and the blond pleating surrounding her face, could be called trimming. The dress was closed at the throat by a small gold clasp, which confined also the edges of the linen collar; drab, openwork mitts covered her well-shaped hands—hands that were never weary with good work, nor ever fearful of losing their beauty in the performance of the daily toils that fell upon them.
As the house grew silent, and more silent, a gentle prayer went up from her heart that she might keep her spirit undefiled, and when, after a little, the stillness was broken by the voice of an aged man in the upper seat, she raised her head and paid the strictest attention to his opening words.
“Like as a father pitieth his children,” he began, his pale face reflecting the purity of his aspirations, and the trembling voice, growing in volume as he proceeded, until after a few moments it had fallen into that peculiar cadence, a sort of half melancholy rising and falling inflection, measured and monotonous, that afflicts the unaccustomed ear, and so often in these holy assemblies destroys their solemnity.
Philo Thomas was a trial to poor Cassy; she revered his patient life of tribulation, she caught the reflection of the light which glowed within his soul, but his outward manifestations were singularly unacceptable to her; she wished that so good a man might feel called upon to keep silence in public places, and yet she half rebuked herself for the seeming disrespect.
Patiently she tried to keep pace with the thought that so slowly fell from the sing-song utterance, but gradually she drifted into a different channel. The glowing face of the man who had rejoiced at her coming was rising before her. Educated, as she had been, to the strictest truthfulness, she could not even seek to shut out from herself the knowledge that she felt and enjoyed his satisfaction at her presence there, nor, indeed, her own pleasure and comfort in this state of affairs. Her heart beat a trifle faster than it ought, and the blush burned again as she forgot the preacher and the company and only remembered the one face across the narrow line which divided the women from the men.
Suddenly the voice ceased, and the solemn silence smote her like a sword.
“What have I done!” she cried out in spirit, “I have desecrated the holy place. My thoughts are the thoughts of a worldling! Can I bear through the week the recollection that I wasted my opportunity on the first day? that any human being can have the power to turn me from my path, can destroy my self-respect, can make me forget my Creator?”
“The Lord is in his holy temple, blessed be the name of the Lord,” passed through her heart, and formed on her trembling lips. Hot tears filled her eyes and fell unheeded on her handkerchief, tears of shame and humiliation.
A faint rustle aroused her. In the gallery a slight pale woman arose, untied the strings of her stiff bonnet, and laid it on the bench beside her. Stepping forward until her hand rested on the rail in front, she spoke softly, distinctly, and the happy change from the droning tones of the earlier speaker riveted the attention of the wandering.