“In vain my soul would try
To shun thy presence, Lord, or flee
The notice of thine eye.”

Both mother and daughter had their names enrolled on the church record.  They were at times earnest and anxious to feel sure that their names were written in the book kept before the throne.  Yet the invitation to Mrs. Jamison’s reception, informally whispered to the daughter as she moved down the church aisle, had enveloped the rest of their Sabbath in gloom.  “Friend, how earnest thou in hither, not having on the wedding garment?” It was a wedding reception to which Jennie had been invited.  Did neither mother nor daughter think of that other wedding, and have a desire to be clothed in the right garment?

CHAPTER III.

SOME PEOPLE WHO FORGOT THE EVER-LISTENING EAR.

There were two other members of the Brower family who had attended church that Sabbath morning.  One was Mr. Brower, sen.  And at the season of dinner-getting he lay on the couch in the dining-room, with the weekly paper in his hand, himself engaged in running down the column of stock prices.  He glanced up once, when the words in the kitchen jarred roughly on his aesthetic ear, and said: 

“Seems to me, if I were you, I would remember that to-day is Sunday, and not be quite so sharp with my tongue.”

Then his solemn duty done, he returned to his mental comparison of prices.  Also, there was Dwight Brower, a young fellow of nineteen or so, who acted unaccountably.  Instead of lounging around, according to his usual custom, hovering between piazza and dining-room, whistling softly, now and then turning over the pile of old magazines between whiles, in search of something with which to pass away the time, he passed through the hall on his return from church, and without exchanging a word with anyone went directly to his room.  Once there, he turned the key in the lock, and then, as though that did not make him feel quite enough alone, he slipped the little brass bolt under it, and then began pacing the somewhat long and somewhat narrow floor.  Up and down, up and down, with measured step and perplexed, anxious face, hands in his pockets, and his whole air one of abandonment to more serious thought than boys of nineteen usually indulge.

What has happened to Dwight?  Something that is not easily settled; for as the chickens sputter in the oven below, and the water boils off the potatoes, and the pudding is manufactured, and the cloud deepens and glooms, he does not recover his free-and-easy air and manner.  He ceases his walk after a little, from sheer weariness, but he thrusts out his arm and seizes a chair with the air of one who has not time to be leisurely, and flings himself into it, and clasps his arms on the table, and bends his head on his hands and thinks on.