last bench.  The Quaker maidens who caught sight of Pepeeta were visibly excited and began to preen themselves as turtle doves might have done if a bird of paradise had suddenly flashed among them.  One of them happened to be seated next her.  She was dressed in quiet drabs and grays.  Her face and person were pervaded and adorned by simplicity, meekness, devotion; and the contrast between the two was so striking as to render them both self-conscious and uneasy in each other’s presence.

The visitors did not know at all what to expect in this unfamiliar place, but could not have been astonished or awed by anything else half so much as by the inexplicable silence which prevailed.  If the whole assemblage had been dancing or turning somersaults, they would not have been surprised, but the few moments in which they thus sat looking stupidly at the people and then at each other seemed to them like a small eternity.  Pepeeta’s sensitive nature could ill endure such a strain, and she became nervous.

“Take me away,” she imploringly whispered to the doctor, who sat by her side, ignorant of the custom which separated the sexes.

He tried to encourage her in a few half-suppressed words, took her trembling hand in his great paw, pressed it reassuringly, winked humorously, and then looked about him with a sardonic grin.

To Pepeeta’s relief, the silence was at last broken by an old man who rose from his seat, reverently folded his hands, lifted his face to heaven, closed his eyes and began to speak.  She had never until this moment listened to a prayer, and this address to an invisible Being wrought in her already agitated mind a confused and exciting effect; but the prayer was long, and gave her time to recover her self-control.  The silence which followed its close was less painful because less strange than the other, and she permitted herself to glance about the room and to wonder what would happen next.  Her curiosity was soon satisfied.  David Corson, the young mystic, rose to his feet.  He was dressed with exquisite neatness in that simple garb which lends to a noble person a peculiar and serious dignity.  Standing for a moment before he began his address, he looked over the audience with the self-possession of an accomplished orator.  The attention of every person in the room was at once arrested.  They all recalled their wandering or preoccupied thoughts, lifted their bowed heads and fixed their eyes upon the commanding figure before them.

This general movement caused Pepeeta to turn, and she observed a sudden transformation on the countenance of the dove-like Quaker maiden.  A flush mantled her pale cheek and a radiance beamed in her mild blue eyes.  It was a tell-tale look, and Pepeeta, who divined its meaning, smiled sympathetically.