noon
`` You know , '' he began -- then came a voice like the legendary sword which divides lovers for their best temporal and spiritual good . `` Dinner is ready and the peas are getting cold , '' said Mrs. Solomon Black . Then it happened that Wesley Elliot , although a man and a clergyman , followed like a little boy the large woman with the water-waves through the weedage of the pastoral garden , and the girl sat weeping awhile from mixed emotions of anger and grief . Then she took a little puff from her bag , powdered her nose , straightened her hair and , also , went home , bag in hand , to her own noon dinner . A church fair is one of the purely feminine functions which will be the last to disappear when the balance between the sexes is more evenly adjusted . It is almost a pity to assume that it will finally , in the nature of things , disappear , for it is charming ; it is innocent with the innocence of very good , simple women ; it is at the same time subtle with that inimitable subtlety which only such women can achieve . It is petty finance on such a moral height that even the sufferers by its code must look up to it .