Maida was not ill-natured. She betrayed no sign of having perceived his discomfiture, and exerted herself to talk in a livelier way than her wont, till he should recover from his mortification. She felt that she was generous in doing this, and the neglect of the others seemed to bind him to her by a rivet the more; so that her spirits rose, and completely shook off the depression which his seeming weariness of her company had been bringing on. He felt grateful in his turn that she should so well cover his retreat, and enable him to bear up under the snub he had been subjected to; the consequence being that they reached Blue Fish Creek on terms of demonstrative good-fellowship, sang from one hymn-book in church, and walked home by the sands again in cordial intimacy. "Jest look at them two interestin' young things!" Mrs Denwiddie observed to her neighbour, as she pointed them out from the omnibus window. "Ain't they fond, now! It makes me feel better to look at them. It's kind of hard, you see, for us worldly-minded Americans, sometimes, to believe about Adam and Eve and their innocent ongoings mentioned in Scripter. There's nothing makes me so 'feared of turning into one of them sceptics the ministers are so down on, as that history; when I see the way young men and gals get on together, with never a thought but dollars and cents and sich. 'There ain't one of them as 'ud eat an apple as he knows'll disagree with him, jest to please his Betsy, nowadays,' I thought. But there!--you see an instance of what faithful love'll do. Jest look at them on the sands there, wanderin' along! They might be babies gatherin' shells, with their little spades in their hands." "Do you mean the Montpelier schoolma'am?" the friend replied. "'Pears to me always like as she was jest vinegar--with her blue glasses and her knitting. I see she has left the glasses at home to-day--guess it's to get a better look at her young man. Wonder what he thinks of her? His taste must be pecooliar." "They're true lovers, them two, believe me, Mrs Strange. If they ain't, there's none sich. It's more'n ten years since they were engaged, and he's been away all that time, to make his pile, and she's been a-waitin' and a-workin' till he could come back to her, and never a complaint. It's not a week yet, since she told me all about it, and not a man would she listen to, in all that time, out of pure faithfulness." "There's few would try to shake her constancy, I'm thinkin'," said Mrs Strange; but her companion was too busy talking to heed her, and continued-- "Think of the young man keepin' her image before his mind's eye all them years! and the world so full of gals, and temptations of all kinds."