ot to wait after all for my good offices of the next morning.
Cecily came down at ten o'clock that night quite happy and excited; she
had been talking to a bishop, such a dear bishop. The bishop had been
showing her his collection of photographs, and she had promised to play
the harmonium for him at the eleven-o'clock service in the morning.
'Bless me!' said I, 'is it Sunday?' It seemed she had got on very well
indeed with the bishop, who knew the married sister, at Tunbridge,
of her very greatest friend. Cecily herself did not know the married
sister, but that didn't matter--it was a link. The bishop was charming.
'Well, my love,' said I--I was teaching myself to use these forms of
address for fear she would feel an unkind lack of them, but it was
difficult--'I am glad that somebody from my part of the world has
impressed you favourably at last. I wish we had more bishops.'

'Oh, but my bishop doesn't belong to your part of the world,' responded
my daughter sleepily. 'He is travelling for his health.'

It was the most unexpected and delightful thing to be packed into one's
chair next morning by Dacres Tottenham. As I emerged from the music
saloon after breakfast--Cecily had stayed below to look over her hymns
and consider with her bishop the possibility of an anthem--Dacres's face
was the first I saw; it simply illuminated, for me, that portion of the
deck. I noticed with pleasure the quick toss of the cigar overboard as
he recognized and bore down upon me. We were immense friends; John liked
him too. He was one of those people who make a tremendous difference;
in all our three hundred passengers there could be no one like him,
certainly no one whom I could be more glad to see. We plunged at once
into immediate personal affairs, we would get at the heart of them
later. He gave his vivid word to everything he had seen and done;
we laughed and exclaimed and were silent in a concert of admirable
understanding. We were still unravelling, still demanding and explaining
when the ship's bell began to ring for church, and almost simultaneously
Cecily advanced towards us. She had a proper Sunday hat on, with flowers
under the brim, and a church-going frock; she wore gloves and clasped a
prayer-book. Most of the women who filed past to the summons of the bell
were going down as they were, in cotton blouses and serge skirts, in
tweed caps or anything, as to a kind of family prayers. I knew exactly
how they would lean against the