On the Church Steps

On the Church Steps

The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Church Steps, by Sarah C.
Hallowell This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: On the Church Steps
Author: Sarah C. Hallowell
Release Date: January 20, 2006 [EBook #17559]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE
CHURCH STEPS ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Christine D. and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

ON THE CHURCH STEPS.
By SARAH C. HALLOWELL.
This e-text was compiled from sections of this novel published in the
August to October editions of:

LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND
SCIENCE. 1873
CHAPTER I.
What a picture she was as she sat there, my own Bessie! and what a
strange place it was to rest on, those church steps! Behind us lay the
Woolsey woods, with their wooing fragrance of pine and soft rushes of
scented air; and the lakes were in the distance, lying very calm in the
cloud-shadows and seeming to wait for us to come. But to-day Bessie
would nothing of lakes or ledges: she would sit on the church steps.
In front of us, straight to the gate, ran a stiff little walk of white pebbles,
hard and harsh as some bygone creed.
"Think of little bare feet coming up here, Bessie!" I said with a shiver.
"It is too hard. And every carriage that comes up the hill sees us."
"And why shouldn't they see us?" said my lady, turning full upon me.
"I am not ashamed to be here."
"Churches should always have soft walks of turf; and lovers," I would
fain have added, "should have naught but whispering leaves about
them."
But Bessie cut me short in her imperious way: "But we are not lovers
this morning: at least," with a half-relenting look at my rueful face, "we
are very good friends, and I choose to sit here to show people that we
are."
"What do you care for people--the Bartons or the Meyricks?" as I
noticed a familiar family carriage toiling up the hill, followed by a
lighter phaeton. I recognized already in the latter vehicle the crimson
feather of Fanny Meyrick, and "the whip that was a parasol."
"Shall I step out into the road this minute, and stop those ladies like a
peaceable highwayman, and tell them you have promised to marry me,
and that their anxiety as to our intimacy may be at rest? Give me but

leave and I will do it. It will make Mrs. Barton comfortable. Then you
and I can walk away into those beckoning woods, and I can have you
all to myself."
Indeed she was worth having. With the witchery that some girls know,
she had made a very picture of herself that morning, as I have said.
Some soft blue muslin stuff was caught up around her in airy
draperies--nothing stiff or frilled about her: all was soft and flowing,
from the falling sleeve that showed the fair curve of her arm to the fold
of her dress, the ruffle under which her little foot was tapping,
impatiently now. A little white hat with a curling blue feather shaded
her face--a face I won't trust myself to describe, save by saying that it
was the brightest and truest, as I then thought, in all the world.
She said something rapidly in Italian--she is always artificial when she
uses a foreign tongue--and this I caught but imperfectly, but it had a
proverbial air about it of the error of too hasty assumptions.
"Well, now I'll tell you something," she said as the carriages
disappeared over the top of the hill. "Fanny Meyrick is going abroad in
October, and we shall not see her for ever so long."
Going abroad? Good gracious! That was the very thing I had to tell her
that morning--that I too was ordered abroad. An estate to be
settled--some bothering old claim that had been handed down from
generation to generation, and now springing into life again by the
lapsing of two lives on the other side. But how to tell her as she looked
up into my face with the half-pleading, half-imperious smile that I
knew so well? How to tell her now?
So I said nothing, but foolishly pushed the little pebbles aside with my
stick, fatuously waiting for the subject to pass. Of course my silence
brought an instant criticism: "Why, Charlie, what ails you?"
"Nothing. And really, Bessie, what is it to us whether Fanny Meyrick
go or stay?"
"I shouldn't have thought it