T was Sunday morning a week later. Springtown's principal church stood in the edge of the village on the red-clay road leading up the mountain-side, now in the delicate green dress of spring, touched here and there by fragrant splotches of pink honeysuckle and white, dark-eyed dog-wood blossoms. The building was a diminutive affair, with five shuttered windows on either side, a pulpit at one end, and a door at the other. A single aisle cut the rough benches into two parts, one side being occupied by the men, and the other by the women. The only exception to this rule was the bench reserved, as if by common consent, for Captain Duncan, who always sat with his family, as did any male guests who attended service with them. The Rev. Jason Hillhouse was the regular pastor. He was under thirty years of age, very tall, slight of build, and of nervous temperament. He wore the conventional black frock-coat, high-cut waistcoat, black necktie, and gray trousers. He was popular. He had applied himself closely to the duties of his calling and was considered a man of character and worth. While not a college graduate, he was yet sufficiently well-read in the Bible and religious literature to suit even the more progressive of mountain church-goers. He differed radically from many of the young preachers who were living imitations of that noted evangelist, the Rev. Tom P. Smith, “the whirlwind preacher,” in that he was conservative in the selection of topics for discourse and in his mild delivery. To-day he was at his best. Few in the congregation suspected it, but, if he distributed his glances evenly over the upturned faces, his thoughts were focussed on only one personality--that of modest Cynthia Porter, who, in a becoming gray gown, sat with her mother on the third bench from the front. Mrs. Porter, a woman of fifty-five years of age, was very plainly attired in a calico dress, to which she had added no ornament of any kind. She wore a gingham poke-bonnet, the hood of which hid her face even from the view of the minister. Her husband, old Nathan Porter, sat directly across the aisle from her. He was one of the roughest-looking men in the house. He had come without his coat, and wore no collar or neck-tie, and for comfort, as the day was warm, he had even thrown off the burden of his suspenders and they lay in careless loops about his hips. He had a broad expanse of baldness, to the edge of which hung a narrow fringe of white hair, and a healthful, pink complexion, and mild, blue eyes. When the sermon was over and the doxology sung, the preacher stepped down into the congregation to take the numerous hands cordially extended to him. While he was thus engaged old Mayhew came from the “amen corner,” on the right, and nodded and smiled patronizingly.