Cicely and her companions soon arrived at Patesville.  Their entrance into the church made quite a sensation, for Cicely was not only an acknowledged belle, but a general favorite, and to John there attached a tinge of mystery which inspired a respect not bestowed upon those who had grown up in the neighborhood.  Cicely secured a seat in the front part of the church, next to the aisle, in the place reserved for the pupils.  As the house was already partly filled by townspeople when the party from the country arrived, Needham and his wife and John were forced to content themselves with places somewhat in the rear of the room, from which they could see and hear what took place on the platform, but where they were not at all conspicuously visible to those at the front of the church.

The schoolmistress had not yet arrived, and order was preserved in the audience by two of the elder pupils, adorned with large rosettes of red, white, and blue, who ushered the most important visitors to the seats reserved for them.  A national flag was gracefully draped over the platform, and under it hung a lithograph of the Great Emancipator, for it was thus these people thought of him.  He had saved the Union, but the Union had never meant anything good to them.  He had proclaimed liberty to the captive, which meant all to them; and to them he was and would ever be the Great Emancipator.

The schoolmistress came in at a rear door and took her seat upon the platform.  Martha was dressed in white; for once she had laid aside the sombre garb in which alone she had been seen since her arrival at Patesville.  She wore a yellow rose at her throat, a bunch of jasmine in her belt.  A sense of responsibility for the success of the exhibition had deepened the habitual seriousness of her face, yet she greeted the audience with a smile.

“Don’ Miss Chan’ler look sweet,” whispered the little girls to one another, devouring her beauty with sparkling eyes, their lips parted over a wealth of ivory.

“De Lawd will bress dat chile,” said one old woman, in soliloquy.  “I t’ank de good Marster I ’s libbed ter see dis day.”

Even envy could not hide its noisome head:  a pretty quadroon whispered to her neighbor:——­

“I don’t b’liebe she ’s natch’ly ez white ez dat.  I ‘spec’ she ’s be’n powd’rin’!  An’ I know all dat hair can’t be her’n; she ’s got on a switch, sho ’s you bawn.”

“You knows dat ain’ so, Ma’y ’Liza Smif,” rejoined the other, with a look of stern disapproval; “you knows dat ain’ so.  You ‘d gib yo’ everlastin’ soul ‘f you wuz ez white ez Miss Chan’ler, en yo’ ha’r wuz ez long ez her’n.”

“By Jove, Maxwell!” exclaimed a young officer, who belonged to the Federal garrison stationed in the town, “but that girl is a beauty.”  The speaker and a companion were in fatigue uniform, and had merely dropped in for an hour between garrison duty.  The ushers had wished to give them seats on the platform, but they had declined, thinking that perhaps their presence there might embarrass the teacher.  They sought rather to avoid observation by sitting behind a pillar in the rear of the room, around which they could see without attracting undue attention.