As they went in, Missy had seen, somehow, with those quick, light-blue
eyes of hers, that Mr. Andrews was in the church, in a pew near the
door. She knew it was the first time he had been in the church since his
wife's death. She began instantly to speculate about his reasons for
coming, and to wonder whether he would have the kindness to go off and
leave them to get into the carriage by themselves after service. Then
St. John's voice had broken in upon the fret, and she had forgotten it,
till they were at the church door, coming out, before chattering little
groups of people on the grass outside. It did not yet rain, but the sky
was gray as granite, and the air chill.
Jay's warm little hand was in hers, unconsciously to them both. Miss
Varian was leaning heavily upon her other arm. Half a dozen persons came
up to speak to them as they made their way to the carriage. At the
carriage door stood Mr. Andrews. Jay made a spring at him. Mr. Andrews
gravely lifted him in. Missy felt an angry agitation as she saw him, but
the words of St. Theresa's wisdom stood by her for the moment. He
scarcely looked at her as he put her into the carriage. Gabrielle, very
subdued, followed, and Mr. Andrews closed the door, lifted his hat,
after some commonplace about the weather, and the carriage drove away.
All Yellowcoats might have seen that. Nothing could have been more
unsensational.
That evening St. John came to tea, very tired and silent. He sat alone
with his mother an hour before tea, and Missy saw tears on her cheeks as
she brought in the light. She came into the library and lay on her sofa,
but could not join them at tea. Those tears always gave Missy a jealous
feeling. These long talks with St. John now always brought them. At tea
the children chattered, and St. John tried to be amusing to them, and
after tea, as they sat around the library fire, while the rain outside
dashed against the windows, he took Jay on his lap, and told him a
story. Jay liked it, and called for more, and Gabby drew near to listen.
"Why didn't you tell us a story to-day at church," he said. "Stories are
a great deal nicer than talking the way you did."
"Goneril says it doesn't do us any good to go to church when we don't
want to," said Gabby. "Does it, Mr. Varian?"
"People don't go to church to be done good to," said Missy, who had no
patience with Goneril, and less with Gabrielle.
"Don't they?" asked Gabrielle, ignoring Missy, and turning her great
eyes up appealingly into St. John's face, as she leaned on the arm of
his chair.
"No, I should think not," said St. John, slowly, putting his hand on
hers.
"Translate it into words of one syllable, St. John," said Missy, poking
a pine-knot into blaze, "that people go to church for worship, not for
edification."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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