There, again, Mrs.
Myers had taken too much for granted; and she had not said a word to him about it.
Just as she heard the bell give its last few rapid and warning strokes, and disappeared through the church-door, she might have seen, had she turned back and looked once more towards her own front gate, four well-dressed youngsters hurrying from it across the street as if a great deal depended on their reaching church before service could begin.
"It's very kind of Mrs.Myers to invite us," remarked Ford, "but she never thought how bashful we'd be about it." They were quickly within the ample porch of the roomy and not at all overcrowded edifice, and were greeted by two or three benevolent-looking elderly gentlemen, with a degree of prompt cordiality which left little to be asked for.
The deacons were awake to their duty relating to new scholars,--"students" they called them; and every attention was paid these four who had begun so well their first Sunday.
So it would be at every church on that green; and it would really be about the middle of the term before stray "academy boys" would be left to find their own way to well-whittled benches in the galleries.
One of the best pews in the house, well forward in the middle aisle, and they had it all to themselves.

There was not another pew in church that morning which seemed to attract so large a share of the attention of the congregation.

Mrs.Myers and Almira were several pews behind, and on the other side of the house; and there had been no opportunity to capture her four boarders, or any of them, while they were marching in.
"Almira! If they haven't brought Dick with them." "Yes, mother; but how very well they look! Mr.Kinzer is really quite handsome." That was hardly Dab's opinion of himself, and nobody had ever taken pains to tell him so; but the four of them, standing up together, and all singing, made quite a picture.

Dick Lee was between Dab Kinzer and Frank Harley, and seemed to feel in honor bound to sing his best.

That was very well too.
If Glorianna could but have had a look at her boy that morning, there is no such thing as telling how proud she would have felt about him.