For he was a very proud man, was
Captain Perez Hamlin, with a soldier's sensitiveness to personal
affronts, and none of that mean opinion of himself and his position in
society which helped the farmers around to bear with equanimity the
snubs of those they regarded as their natural superiors.
The father and mother had fortunately driven on before the scene took
place, and so at least he was spared the added exasperation of being
condoled with on arriving at home. Prudence had stayed to the
afternoon service. Toward twilight, as he was walking to and fro
behind the barn, and indulging an extremely unsanctified frame of
mind, she came to him and blurted out, breathlessly:
"All the girls think she was mean and wicked, and I'll never do any
more work for her or Mis Woodbridge either," and before he could
answer she had run back into the house with burning cheeks. He had
seen that her eyes were also full of tears. It was clear she had been
struggling hard between the pity which prompted her to tender some
form of consolation, and her fear of speaking to him.
The dreamy habit of the mind induced by love in its first stage, often
extends to the point of overspreading all the realities of life and
the circumstances of the individual, with a glamour, which for the
time being, disguises the hard and rigid outlines of fact.
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