She was a tall, delicately built woman, too thin and too unbending to be graceful, and yet too quiet and too dignified to be awkward. Her straight features were neither noticeably pretty nor decidedly plain, and her face was pale without being fair. Her hair, of an ashen shade, clung to her hollow temples; there was not one loose lock, or the suggestion of a ripple under her quakerish bonnet. The straight skirt of her lead-colored dress hung flat, as the skirts of such women always hang, falling to her feet in unbroken lines. It was her eyes alone which made Anne Watson's appearance utterly unlike that of any other woman of her not uncommon type. And even her eyes were neutral in color and slightly prominent, as the eyes of such women nearly always are, but so singularly and luminously clear that a white light seemed to be shining behind them. She fixed these wonderful eyes on her husband as she stood before him ready for church, and yet loath to leave him, and still lingering to see if she might not do something more for his comfort during her absence. She drew the stand nearer to his shaking uncertain hands, after turning the pillows at his helpless back and straightening the cushion under his powerless feet. When she could find nothing more to do, she bent down silently and kissed his scarred forehead. There was nothing for her to say, nothing for him to hear. At the door she looked back, and again from the gate, before passing out to hasten toward the church as though her haste in going might the sooner fetch her back. All along the big road the people were coming. The doctor and his wife were not far behind Anne, and following them came Miss Pettus and her brother, accompanied by Sam Mills. The old man, his father, was worse that morning, or thought he was, which amounted to the same thing, so that Kitty had been compelled to stay at home as usual; but she leant over the front gate, looking after her husband, with her bare red arms rolled in her apron and her honest face beaming with happy smiles as she hailed the passers-by, until the old man's harsh, querulous voice was heard calling her into the house. From the opposite direction, also, the pious people of Oldfield were approaching the meeting-house, the men to enter one door and the women another. Even the children were strictly divided, the boys sitting with their fathers and the girls with their mothers. Once when a man, who was a stranger and unacquainted with Oldfield customs, wandered in and unknowingly took a seat on the women's side, a scandalized shock passed over the entire congregation. It was a serious matter, to be gravely discussed for many a day thereafter.