"
It was growing dusk when they reached the house. In the dim
candle-light Asenath's paleness was not remarked; and Richard's silence
was attributed to fatigue.
The next morning the whole family attended meeting at the neighboring
Quaker meeting-house, in the preparation for which, and the various
special occupations of their "First-day" mornings, the unsuspecting
parents overlooked that inevitable change in the faces of the lovers
which they must otherwise have observed. After dinner, as Eli was
taking a quiet walk in the garden, Richard Hilton approached him.
"Friend Mitchenor," said he, "I should like to have some talk with
thee."
"What is it, Richard?" asked the old man, breaking off some pods from a
seedling radish, and rubbing them in the palm of his hand.
"I hope, Friend Mitchenor," said the young man, scarcely knowing how to
approach so important a crisis in his life,
"I hope thee has been satisfied with my conduct since I came to live
with thee, and has no fault to find with me as a man."
"Well," exclaimed Eli, turning around and looking up, sharply, "does
thee want a testimony from me? I've nothing, that I know of, to say
against thee."
"If I were sincerely attached to thy daughter, Friend Mitchenor, and
she returned the attachment, could thee trust her happiness in my
hands?"
"What?" cried Eli, straightening himself and glaring upon the speaker,
with a face too amazed to express any other feeling.
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