y' staring
up at my distracted vision, till I began to think Fate had designs.
Really, it made me quite nervous, I assure you!"

"I shall have to give you Sunday-school lessons," said Honor, laughing
heartily. "You are a bad boy, Tommy."

"I never attempt to find the places," said Jack. "It's the most
difficult thing in the world when you are nervous and the parson is off
at great speed, like a fox with the pack at his heels. My Church Service
was a present from my old aunt when I was confirmed and is in diamond
print, so that when I hold it upside down, no one is a bit the wiser."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" cried Honor.

"Not at all. I always say 'Amen' at the right moment."

"It is always a case of 'Ah, men!' at Muktiarbad, where church is
concerned," saying which she sprang on her bicycle and fled with the
sound of loud groans in her ears.

* * * * *

Choir practice was well attended, and the "Inseparables" were obediently
on hand to swell the singing of the popular hymns and even attempt a few
chants. At the finish, Mrs. Fox made room for Jack on the organ stool,
and while he worked the pedals, she played a voluntary by Grieg to their
own entertainment and the distraction of the company.

"Fair joint production, if Jack would only remember he is not working a
sewing-machine," said Tommy. "It puts me out of breath to listen."

"The bellows sound like an asthmatic old man about to suffer spontaneous
combustion," said Honor moving away from the vicinity of the American
organ, vexed to see the transparent arts practised by Mrs. Fox to lead
Jack captive.

Divine service when conducted by the District Chaplain was held at the
Railway Institute which was more centrally situated than the Club for
the bulk of the European community at Muktiarbad, and the occasion was
typical of the generality of such functions in the small, _mafasil_
stations lacking a church building. Families of officials,--Government
and Railway, non-officials, and subordinates, found seats for themselves
in the neighbourhood of their respective acquaintance, and there was
only a sprinkling of the masculine element, the majority being husbands
whose demeanour, as they followed in the wake of their wives, was
suggestive of derelict ships being towed into port.

The choir were accommodated near the American organ at which Mrs. Fox
presided with ostentatious skill. Jack's stealthy effort to elude
obser