es, seemed not to
care for their companionship, and to be able to come back. At any rate,
Miss Sally ended up a long cogitation with, "I've a great mind to go
and talk to Prosy about it, after all! Perhaps he would be at church."

Now, if this had been conversation instead of soliloquy, Sally's
constitutional frankness would have entered some protest against the
assumption that she intended to go to church as a matter of course. As
she was her only audience, and one that knew all about the speaker
already, she slurred a little over the fact that her decision to attend
church was influenced by a belief that probably Dr. Vereker would be
there. If she chose, she should deceive herself, and consult nobody
else. She looked at her watch, as the open-work clock with the punctual
ratchet-movement had stopped, and was surprised to find how late she
was. "Comes of weddings!" was her comment. However, she had time to
wind the clock up and set it going when she came downstairs again ready
for church.

St. Satisfax's Revd. Vicar prided himself on the appropriateness of his
sermons; so, this time, as he had yesterday united a distinguished and
beautiful widow to her second husband, he selected for his text the
parable of the widow's son. True, Mrs. Nightingale had no son, and
her daughter wasn't dead, and there is not a hint in the text that
the widow of Nain married again, or had any intention of doing so. On
the other hand, the latter had no daughter, presumably, and her son
was alive. And as to marrying again, why, there was the very gist
and essence of the comparison, if you chose to accept the cryptic
suggestions of the Revd. Vicar, and make it for yourself. The lesson
we had to learn from this parable was obviously that nowadays widows,
however good and solvent, were mundane, and married again; while in the
City of Nain, nineteen hundred years ago, they (being in Holy Writ)
were, as it were, Sundane, and didn't. The delicacy of the reverend
suggestion to this effect, without formal indictment of any offender,
passes our powers of description. So subtle was it that Sally felt she
had nothing to lay hold of.

Nevertheless, when the last of the group that included herself and the
doctor, and walked from St. Satisfax towards its atomic elements'
respective homes, had vanished down her turning--it was the large Miss
Baker, as a matter of fact--then Sally referred to the sermon and its
text, jumping straight to her own indictment