H. C. Bunner

“ Why may she not feel his strong arm about her shoulders, hear his voice in her ears? Why may she not look up now and see his 1 ace bent over hers, love speaking to love in their eyes.
A small brown book slips from her hand and falls upon the ground; but she does not need the printed page. She knows the hymn by heart. The bassoon and the fiddle play softly in the choir of the old church; she hears them faintly, for her heart is fluttering; her hands are cold, there is a mist of tears in her eyes as she looks up into her husband's face, standing before the altar. ”

“ Prudence must have had some blessed comprehension of the worth of a woman's work who does her duty as wife and mother, for I can see her going about her daily tasks with a sweet and placid face, and lifting tender welcoming eyes to her husband as he comes home at sunset from some far corner of the farm—those sweet gray eyes that were content, only a little while ago, with the light of the sun on the trees and the gay face of the summer-clad world. ”

“ Perhaps she is not sorry that the Squire walks slowly; that she has these few moments under the trees and among the birds before the great bare hollow of the church swallows her up for the two long hours of service.
As Prudence sits in her pew to-day—the front pew to the left of the aisle as you face the Dominie—she is conscious that there is among the worshippers a concentration of furtive attention upon the pew behind her the one where old Jan Onderdonck used to sit until he went to finish his mortal slumbers in the graveyard. She does not wonder who may be there ”

“ He walked with her then, and the hay smelt as it smells to-day; the twilight air grew tender and misty about them, the murmur of woodland life made the cool darkness shrill, and the young stars came out in the vague blue of the sky.
What has grown old? What is changed in her heart that it should not cry out for love and joy? ”

“ The broad spread of fields is empty of all but waving grain and nodding corn. The farm-hands stand about the kitchen door, looking strange in their Sunday clothes of black. At the front door stands young Jan Onderdonck, a shapely boy of eighteen, looking out on the world with that white, blank face which the first sight of death among his own puts on a boy. ”

“ For days the ox-carts had creaked and groaned up the rough hill roads to the Onderdonck farm-house, leaving great loads of tables, and chairs, and wardrobes, and chests of drawers, and corded boxes that held hundreds of yards of sweet-clover scented linen, and dresses made by modish seamstresses in New York, and even liberal gifts from the Squire's store of family silver. But besides such things as these, there is always the pitiful little kit that a girl makes up when she leaves the old home-roof and takes ship on the great sea of wifehood. ”

“ You will not see Prudence until all the townspeople and the farmers from the country round about are seated in the pews—not until the Dominie appears at the side door of the church. Then the broad portal of the Squire's house springs open and the Squire marches forth, looking larger than ever in his Sunday black. ”

“ There were other children after that boy, and Prudence found her days well filled up with the little duties of a woman's life—those little duties which would distress women less could they but see the grand total and estimate the value of it. ”

“ Rick Onderdonck was modest even after Mistress Prudence had left the room. I think that the deference of young men toward their elders will not idle out in this world while old men have fair daughters. Mr. Onderdonck took his portion of post-prandial schnapps, and patiently let the Squire and the Dominie whet their rusty Latin on his brand-new learning. ”

“ I am told that to the man who has determined to hand his conscience over to the keeping of an established church this much liberty of personal choice is conceded: that he may elect to which one of the established churches he will make delivery. ”

“ She took it with a frightened courtesy, and went down the aisle, her heart beating hard. Indeed, now, there was no doubt about it. She was sinful, perverse, and wholly unregenerate to the last degree. ”

“ It is a small town, set between the river and the softly rising hills that slope and fall and slope and fall to the feet of the Orange Mountains. Half-way up the long main street lies a little triangle of green, bounded by posts and chains, that is called "the square." The church stands on the highest side, a solid building of reddish-brown stone, with plain rectangular windows, that look blankly out from their many panes of pale-green flint glass. ”