John Stevens' Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon WarGates, Susa Young
General
John Stevens' Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon War
Gates, Susa Young
Latter Day Saints -- Fiction; Utah Expedition (1857-1858) -- Fiction
But hark! all eyes are turned to the stand, as Brigham Young is heard
calling the people to come "to order," and instantly all voices are
stilled; the groups at once settle down into regularity, and the
thoughts of the congregation are fixed upon the words of the heartfelt
opening prayer of Elder Chas. C. Rich.
As the choir began its second hymn, John turned in his seat to see
if Diantha and Ellen were in their seats in the choir. Yes, Diantha
stood there with her lovely form clad in its classical, simple gown of
homespun, fitting her like a molded glove, while the glorious eyes and
scarlet lips were as beautiful as ever. He looked at her so long, and
as she was unconscious of his gaze, so earnestly, that he forgot to
look for Ellen.
After the hymn was over, however, he remembered Ellen and he soon
saw that her place among the altos was vacant. Where was Ellen? he
wondered; she was always at meeting.
John addressed to himself some very severe reflections, and as his mind
left his own affairs and became partly absorbed in the sermon which
Elder Orson Hyde was preaching, he gradually became conscious that he
had formed a resolution. That resolution was to forget Diantha Winthrop
as speedily as possible.
Now, this was a thing which John had never before contemplated. In all
his past associations with the girl, no matter what coldness, neglect
or discouragements he had experienced, he had never for one moment
despaired of some day winning her for his wife. He knew intuitively
something of human nature, and besides that he had felt in the depths
of his own soul a whispering assurance that the girl belonged to him,
and that his claim to her was one which had existed before they came
to this earth. Therefore he had quietly gone along, never seeking to
urge himself or his attentions upon her nor indeed upon any girl;
he had concealed from her as from everyone else the secret of his
preference, and he had lived for years with the hope in his heart which
made his daily sunshine and sweetened his every night vision. Yet now,
with awakened consciousness on his part, he found himself forming an
invincible resolution never again to permit his thoughts or his love to
go out to this girl who had given him at one time plain encouragement,
and who had since, for no reason whatever, turned upon him a colder,
prouder face than she had ever done in the old days before she had
guessed his secret.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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