To this summary of youthful charms would be at once added the grace of
motion before spoken of, which made Dorcas Fox a favorite with all the
young men in Walton, and which gave her a reputation of beauty which
in strictness she did not deserve. A little habitual ill-health,
and the glamour is gone, with the roses and lilies and the music
of motion. In our climate of fierce extremes, both field- and
garden-flowers speedily wilt and chill. Dorcas herself had been a
thousand times told she was the very picture of her mother at her age.
And just to look now at Mrs. Colonel Fox!
A tall young man stood on the doorsteps of the meeting-house, as
Dorcas went demurely behind her parents in at the open door. He looked
at her with a quick, inquiring glance from his keen Yankee eyes, which
she answered with an almost imperceptible nod of her graceful head.
She dropped her eyes, and passed on. This young man was Henry Mowers,
and he owned the Mowers farm. He was a very good, sensible fellow, and
had "kept company," as the country-phrase is, with Dorcas Fox for
the last few weeks, having, indeed, had his eye on her ever since the
New-Year's sleigh-ride and ball.
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