suckled in a creed outworn, envying them their well-regulated faith; it, too, was part of the town’s repose and sweetness, together with the old-fashioned roses and the old-fashioned ladies.  Men, also, were in the congregation—­not many, to be sure, but all unanimously wearing that expression of remarkable virtue which seems always to visit, when he goes to church, the average good fellow who is no better than he should be.  I became, myself, filled with this same decorous inconsistency, and was singing the hymn, when I caught sight of John Mayrant.  What lady was he with?  It was just this that most annoyingly I couldn’t make out, because the unlucky disposition of things hid it.  I caught myself craning my neck and singing the hymn simultaneously and with no difficulty, because all my childhood was in that hymn; I couldn’t tell when I hadn’t known words and music by heart.  Who was she?  I tried for a clear view when we sat down, and also, let me confess, when we knelt down; I saw even less of her so; and my hope at the end of the service was dashed by her slow but entire disappearance amid the engulfing exits of the other ladies.  I followed where I imagined she had gone, out by a side door, into the beautiful graveyard; but among the flowers and monuments she was not, nor was he; and next I saw, through the iron gate, John Mayrant in the street, walking with his intimate aunt and her more severe sister, and Miss La Heu.  I somewhat superfluously hastened to the gate and greeted them, to which they responded with polite, masterly discouragement.  He, however, after taking off his hat to them, turned back, and I watched them pursuing their leisurely, reticent course toward the South Place.  Why should the old ladies strike me as looking like a tremendously proper pair of conspirators?  I was wondering this as I turned back among the tombs, when I perceived John Mayrant coming along one of the churchyard paths.  His approach was made at right angles with that of another personage, the respectful negro custodian of the place.  This dignitary was evidently hoping to lead me among the monuments, recite to me their old histories, and benefit by my consequent gratitude; he had even got so far as smiling and removing his hat when John Mayrant stopped him.  The young man hailed the negro by his first name with that particular and affectionate superiority which few Northerners can understand and none can acquire, and which resembles nothing so much as the way in which you speak to your old dog who has loved you and followed you, because you have cared for him.

“Not this time,” John Mayrant said.  “I wish to show our relics to this gentleman myself—­if he will permit me?” This last was a question put to me with a courteous formality, a formality which a few minutes more were to see smashed to smithereens.

I told him that I should consider myself undeservedly privileged.

“Some of these people are my people,” he said, beginning to move.