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, too, church was up-hill work this morning--in a little seat by herself. At the other pews one glance a piece satisfies me, but, having looked at _her_ once, I look again. I could not tell you _why_ I do it. There is nothing very remarkable about her in the matter of either youth or beauty, and yet I look. The service is ended at length, but eagerly as I long for the fresh air, we are--whether to mark our own dignity, or to avoid further scrutiny on the part of our fellow-worshipers--almost the last to issue from the church. At the porch we find Mr. Musgrave waiting. A sort of _mauvaise honte_ and a guilty conscience combine to disable me from promptly introducing him to my people, and before I recover my presence of mind, Algy has walked on with Barbara, and I am left to follow with Frank. He does not seem in one of his most sunshiny humors, but perhaps the long morning service, so trying in its present arrangement of lengthy prayers, praises, and preaching, to a restless and irritable temper, is to blame for that. "I suppose," he says, speaking rather stiffly, "that I must congratulate you on the arrival of the first detachment." "First detachment of what?" "Of your family. I understood you to say that there were to be _relays_ of them during all Sir Roger's absence."