We had then no bell; and when the hour approached for the commencement of religious services, each nook and dale sent forth its worshippers in silence. But precisely half an hour before the rest of our neighbors started, the old man and woman, who lived upon Pine Hill, could be seen wending their way to the meeting-house. They walked side by side, with a slow even step, such as was befitting the errand which had brought them forth. Their appearance was always the signal for me to lay aside my book, and prepare to follow them to the house of God. And it was because they were so unvarying in their early attendance, because I was never disappointed in the forms which first emerged from the pine trees upon the hill, that I gave them the name of "the first bells." Why they went thus regularly early I know not, but think it probable they wished for time to rest after their long walk, and then to prepare their hearts to join in exercises which were evidently more valued by them than by most of those around them. Yet it must have been a deep interest which brought so large a congregation from the scattered houses, and many far-off dwellings of our thinly peopled country town. And every face was then familiar to me. I knew each white-headed patriarch who took his seat by the door of his pew, and every aged woman who seated herself in the low chair in the middle of it; and the countenances of the middle-aged and the young were rendered familiar by the exchange of Sabbath glances, as we met year after year in that humble temple. But upon none did I look with more interest than upon "the first bells." There they always were when I took my accustomed seat at the right hand of the pulpit. Their heads were always bowed in meditation till they arose to join in the morning prayer; and when the choir sent forth their strain of praise they drew nearer to each other, and looked upon the same book, as they silently sent forth the spirit's song to their Father in heaven. There was an expression of meekness, of calm and perfect faith, and of subdued sorrow upon the countenances of both, which won my reverence, and excited my curiosity to know more of them. They were poor. I knew it by the coarse and much-worn garments which they always wore; but I could not conjecture why they avoided the society and sympathy of all around them. They always waited for our pastor's greeting when he descended from the pulpit, and meekly bowed to all around, but farther than this, their intercourse with others extended not. It appeared to me that some heavy trial, which had knit their own hearts more closely together, and endeared to them their faith and its religious observances, had also rendered them unusually sensitive to the careless remarks and curious inquiries of a country neighborhood.