1 Opposite the Varnum gate, where the road fell away toward the Corbury valley, the church reared its slim white steeple and narrow peristyle.
2 At the end of the village he paused before the darkened front of the church.
3 The hush of midnight lay on the village, and all its waking life was gathered behind the church windows, from which strains of dance-music flowed with the broad bands of yellow light.
4 As he stood in the darkness outside the church these memories came back with the poignancy of vanished things.
5 But now, as he stood outside the church, and saw Mattie spinning down the floor with Denis Eady, a throng of disregarded hints and menaces wove their cloud about his brain.
6 A moment later he heard the jingle of departing sleigh bells and discerned a figure advancing alone toward the empty expanse of snow before the church.
7 He walked on to the church corner and entered the shade of the Varnum spruces, where he had stood with her the night before.
8 They spoke of every-day things, of the prospect of snow, of the next church sociable, of the loves and quarrels of Starkfield.
9 As they drew near the end of the village the cries of children reached them, and they saw a knot of boys, with sleds behind them, scattering across the open space before the church.
10 Through the stillness they heard the church clock striking five.
11 All Starkfield was at supper, and not a figure crossed the open space before the church.
12 But you girls must stand up for me if the church members want to run me out of town for doing it.
13 Mrs. O'Hara said Scarlett must go to church and say some Rosaries for Carreen's recovery.
14 Scarlett's conscience smote her at this last, for it had been months since she had been to church.
15 Once she would have thought this omission a mortal sin but, somehow, staying away from church did not seem so sinful now as it formerly had.