Such doubts and balancings
begin far earlier, often, than we are apt to think.
The minister shook hands cordially and respectfully with Mrs. Linceford
after church. He had no hesitation at her stylishness and fineries.
Everybody took everybody else for granted; and it was all right, Leslie
Goldthwaite supposed, except in her own foolish, unregulated thoughts.
Everybody else had done their Sunday duty, and it was enough; only she
had been all wrong and astray, and in confusion. There was a time for
everything, only her times and thoughts would mix themselves up and
interfere. Perhaps she was very weak-minded, and the only way for her
would be to give it all up, and wear drab, or whatever else might be
most unbecoming, and be fiercely severe, mortifying the flesh. She got
over that--her young nature reacting--as they all walked up the street
together, while the sun shone down smilingly upon the world in Sunday
best, and the flowers were gay in the door-yards, and Miss Milliken's
shop was reverential with the green shutters before the windows that
had been gorgeous yesterday with bright ribbons and fresh fashions; and
there was something thankful in her feeling of the pleasantness that was
about her, and a certainty that she should only grow morose if she took
to resisting it all.
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