Doth a word send waking fancies,
Ringing thought’s familiar brain,
Faint and distant, yet familiar,
Where and when we seek in vain.
Mrs. Acton Tindal.
We must allow an interval of sixteen years to pass away ere we again appear before our readers. To the quiet meeting-house mentioned in our opening chapter, we now revert. The chaplets and flowers we described previously, had long since withered away and returned to their parent dust, and with them, except in faint tradition and in the hearts of the bereaved parents, the name of the lost boy.
The humble building was now half-covered with ivy, and the small, secluded grave-yard was studded with simple stones and heaped with grassy mounds; showing that Time had not been idle in his allotted work. On one side lay the garden of the little house belonging to the pastor—a quiet dwelling shaded with sycamores, which threw large branches over the wall, and heavily shaded that side of the grave-yard.
The low bell had done ringing some time, and the congregation had all assembled. The small house overflowed with numbers, and what cannot be said of many such assemblies, contained but one class of human beings—all meeting on equal terms—none striving after the highest seat—difference of station having never been so much as named among them. These consisted chiefly of old men dressed in the respectable garb of the colonists, and women of different ages.
Opposite the reading-desk was Pastor Bartlett’s pew. The only occupants were his wife and daughter. The latter would have attracted attention in any assembly, for her beauty was of an uncommon cast. Her face was of that kind which is our ideal of a cherub’s—rounded, pure, innocent and happy. The long, golden hair absolutely sparkled in the light, while her skin realized the old poet’s exquisite description:
“Fair as the snow whose fleeces clothe