Polycarp's.
The old town wore an air of Sabbath peace and quietness infinitely
soothing to the spirit. People passed and repassed us. We knew they
knew who we were. The old gentlemen, indeed, bowed to us with
stately uncoverings of the head; the rest regarded us with the sort
of impersonal and perfunctory interest one bestows upon
uninteresting passing strangers. Nobody spoke to us, though the eyes
of the young men were not unaware of Alicia's fairness.
In a great city, of course, one takes that sort of thing for
granted; but in this small town, where everybody knew and spoke to
everybody else, the effect was chilling.
"Talk about the sunny South!" murmured Alicia. "Why, my teeth want
to chatter!"
During the services I was conscious of covert glances in our
direction, but whenever a pair of feminine eyes met mine, they slid
off like lizards and glided another way, with calculated Christian
indifference. They weren't hostile, nor unfriendly: they were just
deliberately indifferent. Nobody had the faintest notion of being
heedful of us strangers among them; and I should be sorry for angels
who expected to be entertained unawares in South Carolina!
When the congregation had filed out and gone about its leisurely
business, the minister and his wife came forward to greet us.
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