It may have been a desire to let the neighbors see how well his khaki suited him, or life in the army had aroused an odd craving for religion, or perhaps it was simply a wish to give pleasure to Melia; at any rate Bill fell in with the idea. She had just time to arrange with the lady next door, Mrs. Griggs by name, who had once been a cook in good service, to give an eye to the turkey which was set cooking in the oven, then to put on her best dress, not much of a best, it was true, but to have gone to church in any other would have been unthinkable, to put on her only decent hat and a sorely mended pair of black cotton gloves, and to get there on the stroke of eleven, just as the bells ceased and the choir were moving down to their stalls. Melia, at any rate, had seldom enjoyed a service so much as this one, and her friend the Reverend Mr. Bontine, who called to see her regularly once a quarter, preached the finest sermon she had ever heard in the course of long years of worship. For all that, it was not certain that Private Hollis was not bored a little by the Reverend Mr. Bontine. He could not help a yawn in the middle of the homily, but this may have been a concession to his length of days as a civilian when "he didn't hold with persons," but as Melia was too much absorbed to notice him, her sense of a manly and fruitful discourse was not marred; and she was able to enjoy the same happy oblivion of martial restiveness during the long prayer. Taking one consideration with another Private Hollis may be said to have borne extremely well an ordeal to which he had not submitted for many years; and at the end of the service as he came out of church he grew alive to the fact that in the sight of the congregation he was a person of far more consequence than he had ever been in his life. More than one pair of eyes, once hostile or aloof, were upon him and also upon Melia. People looked at him as if they would have been only too proud to know him, substantial people like Wilmers, the insurance agent, and Jenkinson the tailor; but the climax came as he stepped on to the flags of Mulcaster Road and no less a man than Mr. Blades, the druggist of Waterloo Square, took off his tall hat to Melia and said, "Happy Christmas to you, Mr. Hollis." A year ago that was an incident that simply could not have happened. But after all it was just one among many. He was an equal now with the best of his neighbors, no matter what their substance and standing. He was a man who counted. In the Blackhampton Battalion he was merely Private Hollis, and not much of a private at that, as many loud voiced and authoritative people made a point of telling him, but in civilian circles apparently the outlook was different.