"So the whole two years slipped away, and good morning was all we had ever said to each other. About this time I began to notice that Deacon Lee got in the way of looking at me in meeting, and his face was very sober, as if something displeased him. Semantha, too, would push past me in going in and out, and didn't speak to me as she always used to do before she went down to Boston to make that long visit among her relations. Deacon Lee had a brother living in Boston who was said to be a very rich man. Father was at his house once when he went down to sell the butter and wool,--as he did every winter,--and he said we could not imagine how beautiful it was,--carpets on all the floors, and even in the entry, which mother thought must make a deal of work with people coming in and out, especially in wet weather. But then father said the Lees had negro servants to do the work, and that Mrs. Lee and her daughters had nothing to do but sit in the parlor all day long. When Semantha came back after her long visit, she brought a great many fine things that her cousins had given her. She used to come into meeting, her high-heeled slippers clattering, and her clocked stockings showing clear down to the peaked toe; she wore a pink crape gown, and over that a white muslin cape that came just down to the waist in the back, and crossed over in front, and was pinned to her gown at the corners; it was bound around with blue lutestring, and her bonnet had a blue bow on it. It was a Navarino bonnet, and cost an extravagant price, seeing that it couldn't be done over. "None of us had ever seen such fine things before; and when Semantha came in, Elder Crane might as well have sat down, for everybody looked at Semantha. I thought it was well that her bonnet hid her face; for if she was like me, it must have been crimson. I am sure I should have died of mortification to have been so stared at. "Mother said she feared it was sinful for a deacon's daughter to make such a display, and wondered if Semantha remembered what the Apostle Paul says of the ornaments that women ought to wear. "But in talking of Semantha, I have forgotten Deacon Lee's queer behavior. He would look at me awhile, and then at Ephraim Allen. It was so curious, I began to fear that he was deranged. But at last I found out what it meant. "One day as I was coming out of meeting, and Ephraim had just said, 'Good morning,' I looked around and there was Deacon Lee close beside us, watching us with a severe expression in his face. 'Young man,' said he, and the tone was so awful that I trembled all over,--'young man, I have noticed for some time past your attempts to attract the attention of this young woman, who, I am grieved to say,'--turning to me,--'does not receive this notice as she ought. Instead of assuming an expression of severe reproof, she blushes from time to time, and casts down her eyes, and I cannot discover from her face that this ungodly conduct is displeasing to her.'