ing, racy of salt water and the soil, were all too obvious and coarse. And everywhere the faces, the costumes, were exaggerated, not heightened into tragedy—that were forgiveable—but twisted into the grotesque, into caricature.
The male part of the congregation were no longer sound citizens to whom she gave her respect and loyalty, but awkward yokels, with uneasy Adam's apples above unyielding linen armour-plate. The salty atmosphere which always pleasantly enveloped the old sea-captains abjectly surrendered to the bay rum emanating from the stout person of Gus Peters "the livery," who had so unsuccessfully tried to conceal the aroma of the stable.
On the edge of her pew perched Lizzie Rountree, the plump milliner. Well Sally knew the journey she was in fancy taking—up the flower bordered aisle, with the sailor sweetheart lost so many years ago. There should have been pathos there, but it was irretrievably gone. She was merely a fat, simpering old maid.
And Mrs. Dr. Ferguson. A moment ago she had been just a sweet little old lady, the youthful wave crinkling her silver hair; her husband a warring saint who had ministered to the bodily and spiritual needs of the village for seventy years. Now the lovelight was befogged into senility.
Two seats behind them, the little birdlike postmistress, Phoebe Prentice, was whispering to Mrs. Schauffler—oh, yes, Sally could hear her as well as if she had been by her side—"Ain't that sweet now,—the two dear old people, lovers still at seventy?" Suddenly Phoebe, too, grew ridiculous.
And then, as Millie Smith, seeing the reflection of the bridal
