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The men shuffled about in their seats, and crossed their legs; the women settled their bonnet-strings, and gave the little children a peppermint drop, and the larger children a hymn-book to read. There were the usual rustling and whispering in the choir, and the creaking footsteps of the one or two who entered shamefacedly, as though they would explain that the horses had detained them.
"Yes, Nate," said the girl, reddening, chewing her bonnet-strings to hide her confusion, and stir ring up the ground with the toe of her shoe, "I reckon I did promise yo' I'd marry yo' when the Yankee soldiers done come for sure, and thar does seem t' be a right smart passel of 'em done come already, with a heapin' more on the way.
Grey drew her arm through his, and silently led her to the house, and into the parlor. He noticed that her breathing was quick and short, and that she sank wearily upon the sofa, as if her strength had well-nigh failed her. He untied her bonnet-strings and removed it, and she threw her head down on the silken cushion, as a spent child might have done.
She sat down on the ground, and lifting Elsie's head, laid it on her lap, untied her bonnet-strings, and loosened her dress. "Jim," she said to the black boy, who stood blubbering by her side, "run quickly for the doctor. And you, Harry Carrington, go for her father, as fast as you can. Lucy, crying so won't do any good. Haven't some of you a smelling-bottle about you?"
For a very few minutes they gracefully deprecate themselves in the eyes of the Lord, then, taking their seats, coquettishly arrange the immense bows of their bonnet-strings, scan the assembly through a gold eyeglass, with the little finger turning up; finally, while smoothing down the satin folds of a dress difficult to keep in place, they scatter, right and left, charming little recognitions and delightful little smiles.
No one was near. Only in the distance, toiling over the dry waves of the sand-dunes towards the steep ascent by which the hilly main street of Herion may be gained, went a white perambulator, canopied with white, and propelled by a nurse in starched white skirts and flying white bonnet-strings a nurse who kept her head well down, and was evidently reading a novel as she went.
She is a tiny little lady, with a gentle, somewhat hesitating manner, but her black eyes are very bright, and she sees things with almost as keen a vision as Lad himself. The Gay Lady was charmed with Grandmother. She put the frail visitor into the easiest chair on the porch, untied her bonnet-strings, smoothed her soft, white curls, and brought a footstool for her little feet.
"Well, I'll tell you: I'm Robert Fraser, from the Fort. That's really all there is to say about me. You see, I've only been in one fight that was last fall and I've never even killed an Indian." She pulled nervously at her bonnet-strings. "You're a soldier," she said. "And pa pa'd be mad as a hornet if he knew I'd spoke to you." Fraser took another step forward. "Pa won't know," he declared.
"I couldn't think what 'ad happened to you," said Mrs. Banks, as she sank panting into a chair, and, unfastening her bonnet-strings, sat regarding him with her hands on her knees. "I knew he was all right," said Mrs. Church, folding her hands and regarding him with her head on one side; "if anything happened to him I should know if he was a hundred miles away."
"There's all the Dep'fords goin', six in the wagon," she told us joyfully; "an' Mis' Alva Tilley's folks are now risin' the hill in their new carry-all." Mrs. Blackett pulled at the neat bow of her black bonnet-strings, and tied them again with careful precision. "I believe your bonnet's on a little bit sideways, dear," she advised Mrs. Todd as if she were a child; but Mrs.
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