I introduced her to her Prayer-book frequently at church, but to little effect; she would obey for the moment, then the book would drop unheeded from her hand, and she would presently be gazing dreamily before her again. Never letting go my dress, she would slip down on her knees when the others did, but when I glanced at her, it was always to find that strange wistful look on her upturned face, that always gave me a vague feeling of uneasiness. She was by no means a precocious child--rather a backward and undeveloped one; but sometimes she startled me with questions that were as much beyond what I had expected of her, as they were beyond me to answer lucidly. Besides our dislike of Félicie and our liking for Trinity Chapel, there was another bond of sympathy between my little cousin and me, and that was, our cordial antipathy to "company" days and times. Not that we ever had much personal interest in them, but the moral atmosphere of the house, for the whole of the day on which one of my aunt's elaborate dinner-parties occurred, was extremely grating to our nerves. My aunt was always a little more decided and hurried, Josephine a shade more imperious, Grace perter, Félicie more hateful, John more given to short answers--in fact, no member of the household but felt oppressed by the coming event. Grace and I dined with Esther at "the little dinner" at one, on such occasions, and all we saw of the contents of the carriages that, about six, began to roll up to the door, was seen from over the balusters of the third-story staircase. My aunt, it is true, had at first proposed to me to put on my new silk, and come downstairs, but it seemed to me that the invitation was rather lukewarm, and she agreed with me very readily in thinking that for this winter, it was better for me to stay altogether out of society. "You will be all the fresher when you do appear, my love," said my aunt Edith. So, _par conséquent_, I saw but little of the visitors at the house, though, through Grace, and the general table talk and accidental meetings in the parlor, I kept the run of the most intimate and familiar ones. Among the gentlemen, there was a Captain McGuffy, an army friend of Phil's, who was a good deal at the house, principally noticeable for his appetite and his moustache. Also, a stale old beau named Reese, who was a kind of heir-loom in fashionable families, handed down from mother to daughter along with other antique and valued relics, to grace their entrée into society. He had been an admirer of my aunt Edith's in her opening bloom, but was now made over to Josephine, by that unselfish parent, to swell the list of the younger one's retainers. Besides these, there was a Mr. Wynkar, very young and very insignificant, endured principally, I fancied, for his utility; and a young Frenchman, who was quite new on the tapis, and much the rage.