And through the depths it seemed as if she saw into that strange, half--remembered world of palm-trees and white robes and dusky faces, and amidst them, looking upon her with ineffable love and tenderness, until all else faded from her sight, the face of a fair woman,--was it hers, so long, long dead, or that dear young mother's who was to her less a recollection than a dream?
Could it have been this vision that soothed her, so that she unclasped her hands and lifted her bowed head as if she had heard a voice whispering to her from that unknown world where she felt there was a spirit watching over her?
At any rate, her face was never more serene than when she went to meeting with the two maiden ladies on the following day, Sunday, and heard the Rev.Mr.Stoker preach a sermon from Luke vii.

48, which made both the women shed tears, but especially so excited Miss Cynthia that she was in a kind of half-hysteric condition all the rest of the day.
After that Myrtle was quieter and more docile than ever before.

Could it be, Miss Silence thought, that the Rev.Mr.Stoker's sermon had touched her hard heart?
However that was, she did not once wear the stormy look with which she had often met the complaining remonstrances Miss Silence constantly directed against all the spontaneous movements of the youthful and naturally vivacious subject of her discipline.
June is an uncertain month, as everybody knows, and there were frosts in many parts of New England in the June of 1859.

But there were also beautiful days and nights, and the sun was warm enough to be fast ripening the strawberries,--also certain plans which had been in flower some little time.

Some preparations had been going on in a quiet way, so that at the right moment a decisive movement could be made.