Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-02-22

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 ed little shade to the church corners
 who were working homeward in pro
 cessional little groups and clumps
 none walking fast, though none witt
 the appearance of great leisure, sine,
 neither rate of progress would have
 been esteemed bef1tting the day. The
 growth of Canaan, steady, though nev
 CT startling, had left almost all of the
 churches downtown, and Main street
 the principal avenue of communication
 between them and the residence sec
 tion.' So today the intermittent pro
 cession stretched along the new cement
 sidewalks from a little below the
 square to upper Main street, where
 naples lined the thoroughfare and the
 mansions of the affluent stood among
 pleasant lawns and shrubberies.
 It was late, for this had been con-
 munion Sunday, and those far in ad.
 vance. who had already reached the
 pretty and shady part of the street,
 were members of the churches where
 services had been shortest, though few
 in the long parade looked as if they
 had been attending anything very
 short, and many heads of families were
 crisp in their replies to the theological
 inquiries of their offspring. The men
 imparted largely gloom to the itin-
 erant concourse, most of them wearing
 hot, long black coats and having wilt
 ed their collars, the ladies relieving
 this gloom somewhat by the lighter
 tints of their garments. the spick and span little girls relieving it greatly by their white dresses and their faces, the latter bright with the hope of Sunday Ice cream, while the boys. experiencing some solace in that they were finally out where person could at least scratch himself if he had to, yet op- pressed by the decorous necessities of the day, marched along. furtively planning behind imperturbably secre- tive countenances various means for the later dispersal of an odious monot- ony.
 Usually the conversation of this long string of the homeward bound was not too frivolous or worldly. Nay; it properly inclined to discussion of the sermon. ~
 It was a serious and seemly Sunday parade, the propriety of whose beha- vior was today almost disintegrated when the lady of the bridge walked up the street in the shadow of a lacy lav- ender parasol carried by Joseph Lou den. The congregation of the church across the square-that to which Joe's stepaunt had been late-was just de- bouching, almost in mass, upon Main street when these two. went by. It Is not quite the truth to say that all ex- cept the children came to dead halt, but it is not very far from it. The air was thick with subdued exclamations and whisperings.
 Here is no mystery. Joe was prob ably the only person of respectable derivation in Canaan who had not known for weeks that Ariel Tabor was ,n her way home. And the news that she had arrived the night before had been widely disseminated on the way o church, entering church, in church even sob and coming out of church. An account of her house in the Ave lue Henri Martin and of her portrait n the Salon-a mysterious business to many and not lacking in grandeur for occupied two columns in he Tocsin on a day some months be- ore when Joe had found himself in- mically headlined on the first page md had dropped the paper without 'eading further. Ariel's name had 'een in the mouth of Canaan for a ong time-unfortunately for Joe, how yer, not in the mouth of that Canaan which held converse with him.
 Joe had not known her. The wom- n recognized her infallibly at first lance, even those who had quite for 'otten her. And the women told their nen; hence the un-Sunday.like de- neanor of the procession, for few owns hold it more unseemly to stand nd stare at passersby. especially on he Sabbath. But Ariel Tabor return d-and walking with-with Joe Lou en!
 Ariel flushed a little when she per eived the extent of their conspicuous ess. but it was not the blush that Joe had reddened the tanned kin of old, for her brownness had one long ago. though it had not left CT merely pink and white. This was
 delicate rosiness rising from her heeks to her temples, as the earliest avn rises. If there had been many 'ords left in Joe he would have called
 divine blush. It fascinated him, nd if anything could have deepened ie glamour about her 1t would have zen this blush. He did not under and it. but when he saw it he stum- led.
 Those who gaped and stared were 1T him only blurs in the background. ruly, he saw men as trees walk 1, G." and when it became necessary to CD out to the curb in passing some ump of people it was to him as If riel and he. mechanically alone, were orking their way through underbrush
 the woods
 He kept trying to realize that this dy of wonder was Ariel Tabor. but could not. He could not connect the abby Ariel. whom he had treated as e Toy treats another. with this young oman of the world. He had always en embarrassed himself and ashamed