noon
As they got by he stole a peep at their well-dressed young backs , and the best dressed and shapeliest was Barbara Garnet 's . The driver was Henry Fair . It was then that the bobolink , for the first time in his life , saw and heard John March . The sun mounted on to noon and nature fell into a reverent stillness ; but in certain leafy aisles under the wooded bluffs and along that narrow stream where Mrs. Fair some three weeks earlier had walked with the widow , the Sabbath afternoon was scarcely half spent before the air began to be crossed and cleft with the vesper hymns and serenades of plumed worshippers and lovers . It was a place to quicken the heart and tongue of any wooer . The breezes moved pensively and without a sound . On the middle surface of the water the sunshine lay in wide bands , liquid-bordered under over-hanging boughs by glimmering shadows that wove lace in their sleep .