As she swept up
the aisle between the rows of farmers and farmers' wives, the contrast
between their coarse, ill-fitting and sad-colored homespun, and her
rich and tasteful robes, was not more striking than the difference
between the delicate distinction of her features and their hard, rough
faces, weather-beaten and wrinkled with toil and exposure, or sallow
and hollow cheeked with care and trouble. She looked like one of a
different order of beings, and indeed, it is nothing more than truth
to say that such was exactly the opinion which Miss Desire herself
entertained. The eyes of admiration with which the girls leaning over
the gallery followed her up the aisle, were quite without a spark of
jealousy, for they knew that their rustic sweethearts would no more
think of loving her than of wasting their passion on the moon. She was
meat for their betters, for some great gentleman from New York or
Boston, all in lace and ruffles, some judge or senator, or, greater
still, maybe some minister.
To tell the whole truth, however, the admiring attention which her own
sex accorded to Desire on Sundays, was rather owing to the ever
varying attractions of her toilet, than to her personal charms.
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