To this day, on hot summer Sundays, many a staid old daughter of
the Puritans may be seen entering the village meeting-house, clad in
a lilac-sprigged lawn or a green-striped barege,--a scanty-skirted,
surplice-waisted relic of past summers,--with a lace-bordered silk cape
or a delicate, time-yellowed, purple and white cashmere scarf on her bent
shoulders, wearing on her gray head a shirred-silk or leghorn bonnet, and
carrying in her lace-mitted hand a fresh handkerchief, her spectacle-case
and well-worn Bible, and a great sprig of the sweet, old-fashioned
"lad's-love." A rose, a bunch of mignonette would be to her too gay a posy
for the Lord's House and the Lord's Day. And balmier breath than was
ever borne by blossom is the pure fragrance of green growing
things,--southernwood, mint, sweet fern, bayberry, sweetbrier. No rose is
half so fresh, so countrified, so memory-sweet.
The benches and the pew-seats in the old churches were never cushioned.
Occasionally very old or feeble women brought cushions to meeting to sit
upon. It is a matter of recent tradition that Colonel Greenleaf caused a
nine days' talk in Newbury town at the beginning of this century when
he cushioned his pew. The widow of Sir William Pepperell, who lived in
imposing style, had her pew cushioned and lined and curtained with
worsted stuff, and carpeted with a heavy bear-skin.
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