"No, they wouldn't!" replied her aunt Maria, sharply, at once diverted. "I can tell you just exactly what they would do, if you were to trim up a hat with that red velvet and that feather and give it to that young one. Her good-for-nothing mother would have it on her own head in no time, and go flaunting out in it with that man that boards there." Nothing could excel the acrimonious accent with which Aunt Maria weighed down the "man who boards there," and the acrimony was heightened by the hoarseness of her voice. Her cold was still far from well, but Aunt Maria stayed at home from church for nothing short of pneumonia. The church was about half a mile distant. The meeting was held in a little chapel built out like an architectural excrescence at the side of the great, oblong, wooden structure, with its piercing steeple. The chapel windows blazed with light. People were flocking in. As they entered, a young lady began to play on an out-of-tune piano, which Judge Josiah Saunders had presented to the church. She played a Moody-and-Sankey hymn as a sort of prologue, although nobody sang it. It was a curious custom which prevailed in the Amity church. A Moody-and-Sankey hymn was always played in evening meetings instead of the morning voluntary on the great organ. Maria and her two aunts moved forward and seated themselves. Maria looked absently at the smooth expanse of hair which showed below the hat of the girl who was playing. The air was played very slowly, otherwise the little audience might have danced a jig to it. Maria thought of the meetings which she used to attend in Edgham, and how she used to listen to the plaint of the whippoorwill on the river-bank while the little organ gave out its rich, husky drone. This, somehow, did not seem so religious to her. She remembered how she had used to be conscious of Wollaston Lee's presence, and how she had hoped he would walk home with her, and she reflected with what shame and vague terror she now held him constantly in mind. Then she thought of George Ramsey, and directly, without seeing him, she became aware that he was seated on her right and was furtively glancing at her. A wild despair seized her at the thought that he might offer to accompany her home, and how she must not allow it, and how she wanted him to do so. She kept her head steadfastly averted. The meeting dragged on. Men rose and spoke and prayed, at intervals the out-of-tune piano was invoked. A woman behind Maria sang contralto with a curious effect, as if her head were in a tin-pail. There were odd, dull, metallic echoes about it which filled the whole chapel. The woman's daughter had some cheap perfume on her handkerchief, and she was incessantly removing it from her muff. A man at the left coughed a good deal. Maria saw in front of her Lily Merrill's graceful brown head, in a charming hat with red roses under the brim, and a long, soft, brown feather. Lily's mother was not with her. Dr.