CHAPTER XXXII.
HARVEST SUNDAY.
October was come again, the poetry of summer had almost departed, and it was a quiet Sunday morning in the country.

The bell on the little old church by the hillside, at Nyack, was calling the plodding Dutch settlers to morning service.

The hard, hollow sounds of the old bell echoed harshly over the hills, and yet there was something in its familiar sounds, and the quiet pastoral scenes it was associated with, that always moved our feelings, and prompted us to give them a pleasant resting place in our love.
Cattle were resting in the fields, and their yokes hung on the gate posts that day.

A soft, Indian-summer glow hung with transparent effect over the landscape; and a gentle wind whispered lovingly over the Tappan Zee.

Autumn, too, had hung the trees in her brightest colors.
It was Harvest Sunday, a sort of festive resting-day with the Dutch settlers, who had gathered about the little church in great numbers, young and old, all dressed in their simple but neat attire.