Of the gathering, which was not large, two thirds, perhaps, were people of condition; and in the country, where occasions for display did not present themselves uncalled, it was highly becoming to worship the Lord in fine clothes. So there were broken rainbows in the tall pews, with a soft waving of fans to and fro in the essenced air, and a low rustle of silk. The men went as fine as the women, and the June sunshine, pouring in upon all this lustre and color, made a flower-bed of the assemblage. Being of the country, it was vastly better behaved than would have been a fashionable London congregation; but it certainly saw no reason why Mr. Marmaduke Haward should not, during the anthem, turn his back upon altar, minister, and clerk, and employ himself in recognizing with a smile and an inclination of his head his friends and acquaintances. They smiled back,--the gentlemen bowing slightly, the ladies making a sketch of a curtsy. All were glad that Fair View house was open once more, and were kindly disposed toward the master thereof. The eyes of that gentleman were no longer for the gay parterre. Between it and the door, in uncushioned pews or on rude benches, were to be found the plainer sort of Darden’s parishioners, and in this territory, that was like a border of sober foliage to the flower-bed in front, he discovered whom he sought. Her gaze had been upon him since he passed the minister’s pew, where she stood between my Lady Squander’s ex-waiting-woman and the branded schoolmaster, but now their eyes came full together. She was dressed in some coarse dark stuff, above which rose the brown pillar of her throat and the elusive, singular beauty of her face. There was a flower in her hair, placed as he had placed the rosebuds. A splendor leaped into her eyes, but her cheek did not redden; it was to his face that the color rushed. They had but a moment in which to gaze at each other, for the singing, which to her, at least, had seemed suddenly to swell into a great ascending tide of sound, with somewhere, far away, the silver calling of a trumpet, now came to an end, and with another silken rustle and murmur the congregation sat down. Haward did not turn again, and the service went drowsily on. Darden was bleared of eye and somewhat thick of voice; the clerk’s whine was as sleepy a sound as the buzzing of the bees in and out of window, or the soft, incessant stir of painted fans. A churchwarden in the next pew nodded and nodded, until he nodded his peruke awry, and a child went fast asleep, with its head in its mother’s lap. One and all worshiped somewhat languidly, with frequent glances at the hourglass upon the pulpit. They prayed for King George the First, not knowing that he was dead, and for the Prince, not knowing that he was King. The minister preached against Quakers and witchcraft, and shook the rafters with his fulminations. Finally came the benediction and a sigh of relief.