Nancy's
needle was no busier than her memory. Long years ago she had often sat in the
Peabody pew, sometimes at first as a girl of sixteen when asked by Esther, and
then, on coming home from school at eighteen, "finished," she had been invited
now and again by Mrs. Peabody herself, on those Sundays when her own invalid
mother had not attended service.
Those were wonderful Sundays--Sundays of quiet, trembling peace and maiden
joy.
Justin sat beside her, and she had been sure then, but had long since grown to
doubt the evidence of her senses, that he, too, vibrated with pleasure at the
nearness. Was there not a summer morning when his hand touched her white lace
mitt as they held the hymn-book together, and the lines of the
Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings,
Thy better portion trace,
became blurred on the page and melted into something indistinguishable for a
full minute or two afterward? Were there not looks, and looks, and looks? Or
had she some misleading trick of vision in those days? Justin's dark, handsome
profile rose before her: the level brows and fine lashes; the well-cut nose
and lovable mouth--the Peabody mouth and chin, somewhat too sweet and pliant
for strength, perhaps.
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