It is really surprising that young ladies should not be thought competent to the same curriculum as young gentlemen.  I observe that their powers of sarcasm are quite equal; and if there had been a genteel academy for young gentlemen at Milby, I am inclined to think that, notwithstanding Euclid and the classics, the party spirit there would not have exhibited itself in more pungent irony, or more incisive satire, than was heard in Miss Townley’s seminary.  But there was no such academy, the existence of the grammar-school under Mr. Crewe’s superintendence probably discouraging speculations of that kind; and the genteel youths of Milby were chiefly come home for the midsummer holidays from distant schools.  Several of us had just assumed coat-tails, and the assumption of new responsibilities apparently following as a matter of course, we were among the candidates for confirmation.  I wish I could say that the solemnity of our feelings was on a level with the solemnity of the occasion; but unimaginative boys find it difficult to recognize apostolical institutions in their developed form, and I fear our chief emotion concerning the ceremony was a sense of sheepishness, and our chief opinion, the speculative and heretical position, that it ought to be confined to the girls.  It was a pity, you will say; but it is the way with us men in other crises, that come a long while after confirmation.  The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

But, as I said, the morning was sunny, the bells were ringing, the ladies of Milby were dressed in their Sunday garments.

And who is this bright-looking woman walking with hasty step along Orchard Street so early, with a large nosegay in her hand?  Can it be Janet Dempster, on whom we looked with such deep pity, one sad midnight, hardly a fortnight ago?  Yes; no other woman in Milby has those searching black eyes, that tall graceful unconstrained figure, set off by her simple muslin dress and black lace shawl, that massy black hair now so neatly braided in glossy contrast with the white satin ribbons of her modest cap and bonnet.  No other woman has that sweet speaking smile, with which she nods to Jonathan Lamb, the old parish clerk.  And, ah!—­now she comes nearer—­there are those sad lines about the mouth and eyes on which that sweet smile plays like sunbeams on the storm-beaten beauty of the full and ripened corn.

She is turning out of Orchard Street, and making her way as fast as she can to her mother’s house, a pleasant cottage facing a roadside meadow, from which the hay is being carried.  Mrs. Raynor has had her breakfast, and is seated in her arm-chair reading, when Janet opens the door, saying, in her most playful voice,—­’Please, mother, I’m come to show myself to you before I go to the Parsonage.  Have I put on my pretty cap and bonnet to satisfy you?’