Once Evelina had looked at him, even as the older Evelina had looked
at his father, and all other looks of maidens seemed to him like
profanations of that, even although he doubted afterwards that he had
rightly interpreted it. Full it had seemed to him of that tender
maiden surprise and wonder, of that love that knows not itself, and
sees its own splendor for the first time in another's face, and flees
at the sight. It had happened once when he was coming down the aisle
after the sermon and Evelina had met him at the door of her pew. But
she had turned her head quickly, and her soft curls flowed over her
red cheek, and he doubted ever after if he had read the look aright.
When he had gotten the courage to speak to her, and she had met him
with the gentle coldness which she had learned of her lady aunt and
her teacher in Boston, his doubt was strong upon him. The next Sunday
he looked not her way at all. He even tried faithfully from day to
day to drive her image from his mind with prayer and religious
thoughts, but in spite of himself he would lapse into dreams about
her, as if borne by a current of nature too strong to be resisted.
And sometimes, upon being awakened from them, as he sat over his
sermon with the ink drying on his quill, by the sudden outburst of
treble voices in his mother's sitting-room below, the fancy would
seize him that possibly these other young damsels took fond liberties
with him in their dreams, as he with Evelina, and he resented it with
a fierce maidenliness of spirit, although he was a man.
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