"H'm! She didn't say '_Linda_, my dear.' Guess she don't like bosom-pins," thought Patty; and her silly heart danced up again. "O, but I know why Mrs. Chase says 'Patty, my dear;' it's because I--well, she s'poses I gave that dollar to the girl that her father was drunk." And I am glad to say Patty blushed. The meeting-house was an unpainted building with two doors. As they walked in at the left door, their feet made a loud sound on the floor, which was without a carpet. There were galleries on each side of the house, and indeed the pulpit was in a gallery, up, up, ever so high, with a sounding-board over the preacher's head. Right in the middle of the church was a box stove, but you could see that it was not half large enough to heat the house. Of course there was no fire in it now, for it was midsummer; but in the winter ladies had to carry foot-stoves full of live coals to keep their feet warm in their pews. Squire Lyman's pew was very near the pulpit, and was always pretty well filled. Like the rest of the great square boxes,--for that was what they looked like,--the seat was so high that Patty's scarlet shoes dangled in the air ever so far from the floor. At precisely ten o'clock, Elder Lovejoy walked feebly up the aisle, and climbed the pulpit stairs. Patty watched him, as if he had been one of Jacob's angels ascending the ladder. He was a tall, thin man, with a fair complexion and long features. He wore a large turned-down collar and a white neckerchief, stuffed round the throat with what was called a pudding, and the ends of the neckerchief were so very long that they hung half way down his vest. Everybody loved Elder Lovejoy, for he was very good; but Patty thought him more than human. He seemed to her very far off, and sacred, like King Solomon or King David; and if he had worn a crown, she would have considered it very appropriate. After a long prayer, during which all the people stood up, Elder Lovejoy read a long, long psalm, and the people rose again to hear it sung. They turned their backs to the pulpit, and faced the singers. But there was a great surprise to-day. A strange sound mingled with the voices singing; it was the sound of a bass-viol. The people looked at one another in surprise, and some with frowns on their faces. Never had an instrument of music of any sort been brought into that little church before; and now it was Deacon Turner's brother, the blacksmith, who had ventured to come there with a fiddle! Good Elder Lovejoy opened his eyes, and wiped his spectacles, and thought something must be done about it; they could not have "dance music" in that holy place. Deacon Turner and a great many others thought just so too; and at noon they talked to the wicked blacksmith, and put a stop to his fiddle.