As fashions did not come to Walton oftener than once in ten years, it followed that apparel among the young people wore very much the expression of individual taste, while among the elders it was wont to assume the cast now irreverently designated by “fossil remains.”  And, really, it did not much matter.  Whatever our country-grandmothers were admired and esteemed for, be sure it was not dress.

As the clock pointed to half-past ten, the door opened quickly, and Dorcas stood on the threshold, like a summer breeze that has stopped one moment its fluttering, and hovers fresh, sweet, and sunny in the morning air.  The breath of her presence, if indeed it were not association, roused old Colonel Fox from his sleep.  He glanced at her, took the ready arm of his wife, looked again at the clock, and passed out over the flat door-stone with his cocked hat and cane, as became an invalid soldier and a gentleman.  Behind them, hymn-book in hand and with downcast eyes, walked Dorcas.  Not a word passed between the parents and their only daughter.  On Sunday, people were not to think their own thoughts.  And familiarity between parents and children, never allowed even on week-days, would have been unpardonable unfitness on the Sabbath.

They reached the church-door just as the minister, with his white wig shedding powder on his venerable back, passed up the broad-aisle.  A perfectly decorous throng of the loiterers followed, and the pews rapidly filled.  The Colonel and his wife, being persons of consequence, took their way with suitable dignity and deliberation.  In the three who turned, about half-way up the broad-aisle, into a square pew, a physiognomist would have seen at one glance the characteristic features of each mind.  In the Colonel, choleric, fresh, and warm-hearted, a good lover, and not very good hater.  In his wife, “a chronicler of small-beer,” with a perfectly negative expression.  One might guess she did no harm, and fear she did no good,—­that she saved the hire of an upper servant,—­that she was an inveterate sewer and cleaner, and would leave the world in time with an epitaph.

On the third figure and face the physiognomist might dwell longer,—­but that rather because youth, hope, and inexperience had refused to make any of the life-marks that tell stories in faces.  There was abundant room for imagination and prophecy.

A figure not too tall, but full of wavy lines,—­two dark-blue eyes, whose full under-lids gave an expression of arch sweetness to the glance,—­a delicate complexion of roses and lilies, as suggestive of fading as of blossoming,—­features small, and not at all of the Greek pattern,—­and the rather large head and slightly developed bust, typical of American rural beauty.

To this summary of youthful charms would be at once added the grace of motion before spoken of, which made Dorcas Fox a favorite with all the young men in Walton, and which gave her a reputation of beauty which in strictness she did not deserve.  A little habitual ill-health, and the glamour is gone, with the roses and lilies and the music of motion.  In our climate of fierce extremes, both field- and garden-flowers speedily wilt and chill.  Dorcas herself had been a thousand times told she was the very picture of her mother at her age.  And just to look now at Mrs. Colonel Fox!