preserved in it, and not evaporated. Adventure is to stagnation what champagne is to flat porter."
He looked round. The church was cold, silent, empty, but for one old woman. As the chimes subsided, and the single bell tolled slowly, another and another elderly parishioner came dropping in, and took his humble station in the free sittings. It is always the frailest, the oldest, and the poorest that brave the worst weather, to prove and maintain their constancy to dear old mother Church: this wild morning, not one affluent family attended, not one carriage party appeared—all the lined and cushioned pews were empty; only on the bare oaken seats sat ranged the gray-haired elders and feeble paupers.
"I'll scorn her, if she doesn't come," muttered Martin shortly and savagely to himself. The Rector's shovel-hat had passed the porch: Mr. Helstone and his clerk were in the vestry.
The bells ceased—the reading-desk was filled—the doors were closed—the service commenced: void stood the Rectory-pew—she was not there: Martin scorned her.
"Worthless thing! Vapid thing! Commonplace humbug! Like all other girls—weakly, selfish, shallow!"
Such was Martin's liturgy.
"She is not like our picture: her eyes are not large and expressive: her nose is not straight, delicate, Hellenic: her mouth has not that charm I thought it had—which, I imagined, could beguile me of sullenness in my worst moods. What is she? A thread-paper, a doll, a toy—a girl, in short."
