Now the whole interior, in fine perspective, stood exposed, at least seventy-five by fifty feet, like a majestic hall unbroken by any side-galleries, and with double stories of windows shedding a hazy light, and, at the distant end, a low pulpit, with spacious altar. The walls of this neglected temple were two feet thick, and its high ceiling was kept from falling down by ten rude wooden props of recent rough carpentry; the pews were stately, high-fenced things, numbered in white letters on a black ground, and each four-sided, to contain ten persons; the rotting damask cushions in many of them told of a former aristocracy, while now all the congregation could be assembled in a single pew, and worship was unknown but once a year, when the bishop came to read his liturgy to dust and desolation.

So, on the opposite western cape of the Chesapeake, shivered the Roman priests of Calvert's foundation, in the waste of old St. Mary's; the folds had left the shepherds, and fifty people only came to worship in the kirk of the earliest Presbyterians.

Two tall, once considered elegant, stoves were nearly midway up the cracking church-floor; and Mary, the free woman, had made a fire in one of them, and the pine wood was roaring, and the long height of pipe was smoking. Startled by the fire, a venerable opossum came out of one of the pews, and waggled down the aisle, like a gray devotee who had said his prayers, and feared no man.

Vesta was reading her prayer-book aloud near the stove to the pretty widow and Grandmother Tilghman. In a few moments the young rector emerged from a curious old gallery for black people, by the door, wearing his surplice; and he read the service at the desk, plaintive and simple, Milburn and his group responding in the room a thousand might have worshipped in.

"Cousin Vesta," the minister said, after the service, "Miss Holland is going to try to love me. Mr. Milburn, may I address her?"

"She is a wilful piece," Meshach said; "you must school her first. Let my wife give my consent."

Vesta went to both, and kissed them:

"I feel so much encouraged, dear Rhoda and William, to see love beginning all about me. Now, Norah, if you could be just to James Phoebus, who is proving his love to you, perhaps, with his life!"

"Yes, that is a match I approve of," said Grandmother Tilghman, "but I don't want Bill to marry. Disappointed men make rash selections."

"Oh," said Rhoda, "don't conglatulate him too soon; I haven't tuk him yet. He's goin' teach me outen the books, and I'll teach him outen the forest."

They walked together to the river bank, and Mrs. Dennis had the poor woman, Mary, tell the adventures of Jimmy Phoebus to save her from slavery. All were deeply moved.

"Now, Norah," Grandmother Tilghman said, "the moment that man comes back you go to him and kiss him, and say, 'James, you have been the only father to my son. Do you want me to be your wife?' This world is made for marrying, Norah. Women have no other career. Nature does not value the brain of Shakespeare, but keeps the seed of every vagrant plant warm, and marries everything."