we sat
under the trees by the little pool, feeding the pert sparrows and the
intimate cock-chaffinch that resort thither. He is not there!

Barbara may be crowned with any abomination, in the way of a bonnet,
that ever entered into the grotesque imagination of a milliner to
conceive--coal-scuttle, cottage, spoon--for all that it matters. The
organ strikes up, a file of chorister-boys in dirty surplices--Tempest
is a more pretentious church than ours--and a brace of clergy enter. All
through the Confession I gape about with vacant inattention--at the
grimy whiteness of the choir; at the back of the organist's head; at the
parson, a mealy-mouthed fledgling, who, with his finger on his place in
the prayer to prevent his losing it, is taking a stealthy inventory of
my charms.

Suddenly I hear the door, which has been for some time silent, creak
again in opening. Footsteps sound along the aisle. I look up. Yes, it is
he! walking as quickly and noiselessly as he can, and looking rather
ashamed of himself, while patches of red, blue, and golden light, from
the east window, dance on his Sunday coat and on the smooth darkness of
his hair. I glance at Barbara, to give her notice of the approach of her
destiny, but my glance is lost. Barbara's stooped head is hidden by her
hands, and her pure thoughts are away with God. As a _pis aller_, I look
at Algy. No absorption in prayer on _his_ part baffles me. He is leaning
his elbow on his knee, and wearily biting the top of his prayer-book. He
returns my look by another, which, though wordless, is eloquent. It
says, in raised eyebrow and drooped mouth, "Is that all? I do not think
much of him?"

The church is full and hot. The windows are open, indeed, but only the
infinitesimally small chink that church-windows ever do open. The
pew-opener sedulously closes the great door after every fresh entrance.
I kneel simmering through the Litany. Never before did it seem so long!
Never did the chanted, "We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!" appear
so endlessly numerous.

Under cover of my arched hands, shading my eyes, I peep at one after
another of the family groups. Most of them are behind me indeed, but
there are still a good many that I can get a view of sideways. Among
these, the one that oftenest engages my notice is a small white woman,
evidently a lady--and, at the moment I first catch sight of her, with
closed eyes and drawn-in nostrils, inhaling smelling-salts, as if to
her, to