Churches don't seem to, sir."
"I'm not so sure about all that," I said again.
"They did say, sir, that I was a pretty girl once. I'm not much to look at
now."
And she smiled with such a gracious amusement, that I felt at once that if
there was any vanity left in this memory of her past loveliness, it was
sweet as the memory of their old fragrance left in the withered leaves of
the roses.
"But it du not matter, du it, sir? Beauty is only skin-deep."
"I don't believe that," I answered. "Beauty is as deep as the heart at
least."
"Well to be sure, my old husband du say I be as handsome in his eyes as
ever I be. But I beg your pardon, sir, for talkin' about myself. I believe
it was the old church--she set us on to it."
"The old church didn't lead you into any harm then," I answered. "The
beauty that is in the heart will shine out of the face again some day--be
sure of that. And after all, there is just the same kind of beauty in a
good old face that there is in an old church. You can't say the church is
so trim and neat as it was the day that the first blast of the organ filled
it as with, a living soul. The carving is not quite so sharp, the timbers
are not quite so clean.
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