On the Church Steps

What a picture she was as she sat there my own Bessie! and what a strange place it was to rest on those church steps! Behind us lay the Woolsey woods with their wooing fragrance of pine and soft rushes of scented air; and the lakes were in the distance lying very calm in the cloud-shadows and seeming to wait for us to come. But to-day Bessie would nothing of lakes or ledges: she would sit on the church steps. In front of us straight to the gate ran a stiff little walk of white pebbles hard and harsh as some bygone creed.