‘I must look my best, mother,’ she said.

‘My child,’ said the elder, ’it’s what you do and not what you wear that’s important.’

‘They’re both important, Elder,’ said my foster mother.  You should teach your people the duty of comeliness.  They honour their Maker when they look their best.’

The spirit of liberalism was abroad in the sons of the Puritans.  In Elizabeth Brower the ardent austerity of her race had been freely diluted with humour and cheerfulness and human sympathy.  It used to be said of Deacon Hospur, a good but lazy man, that he was given both to prayer and profanity.  Uncle Eb, who had once heard the deacon swear, when the latter had been bruised by a kicking cow, said that, so far as he knew, the deacon never swore except when ’twas necessary.  Indeed, most of those men had, I doubt not, too little of that fear of God in them that characterised their fathers.  And yet, as shall appear, there were in Faraway some relics of a stern faith.

Hope came out in fine feather, and although I have seen many grand ladles, gowned for the eyes of kings, I have never seen a lovelier figure than when, that evening, she came tripping down to the buggy.  It was three miles to the white Church, and riding over in the twilight I laid the plan of my life before her.  She sat a moment in silence after I had finished.

‘I am going away, too,’ she remarked, with a sigh.

‘Going away!’ I said with some surprise, for in all my plans I had secretly counted on returning in grand style to take her back with me.

‘Going away,’ said she decisively.

‘It isn’t nice for girls to go away from home,’ I said.

‘It isn’t nice for boys, either,’ said she.

We had come to the church, its open doors and windows all aglow with light.  I helped her out at the steps, and hitched my horse under the long shed.  We entered together and made our way through the chattering crowd to the little cloakroom in one corner.  Elder Whitmarsh arrived in a moment and the fiddler, a short, stout, stupid-looking man, his fiddle in a black box under his arm, followed him to the platform that had been cleared of its pulpit The stranger stood staring vacantly at the crowd until the elder motioned him to a chair, when he obeyed with the hesitating, blind obedience of a dog.  Then the elder made a brief prayer, and after a few remarks flavoured with puns, sacred and immemorial as the pulpit itself, started a brief programme of entertainment.  A broad smile marked the beginning of his lighter mood.  His manner seemed to say:  ’Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will give good heed, you shall see I can be witty on occasion.’