sent case
Sally _was_ going to church, so she had to account to herself for a
_nuance_ in her mother's manner--after dwelling on the needlessness
and inadvisability of pressing Mr. Fenwick as to his recollections--by
ascribing it to the consciousness of some secularism elsewhere; and he
was the nearest case of ungodliness to hand.

"I wonder whether he believes anything at all!" said Sally, assuming
the consecutiveness of her remark.

"I don't see why he shouldn't.... Why should he disbelieve more
than...? All I mean is, I don't know." The speaker ended abruptly; but
then that may have been because they were at the church door. Possibly
as a protest against having carried chat almost into the precinct,
Mrs. Nightingale's preliminary burial of her face in her hands lasted
a long time--in fact, Sally almost thought she had gone to sleep, and
told her so afterwards. "Perhaps, though," she added, "it was me came
up from under the bedclothes too soon." Then she thought her levity
displeased her mother, and kissed her. But it wasn't that. She was
thoughtful over something else.

This time, in the church, it may be Sally noticed her mother's
abstraction (or was it, perhaps, devotional tension?) less than she
had done when her attention had been caught once or twice lately by
a similar strained look. For Miss Sally had her eyes on a little
gratifying incident of her own--a trifle that would already have
appeared as an incident in her diary, had she kept one, somewhat
thus:--"Saw that young idiot from Cattley's Stores again in church
to-day, in a new scarlet necktie. I wonder whether it's me, or Miss
Peplow that gollops, or the large Miss Baker." Which would have shown
that she was not always a nun breathless with adoration during
religious exercises. The fact is, Sally would have made a very poor
St. Teresa indeed.

The young idiot was the same young man who had brought the difficult
French idiom to Krakatoa, while Mr. Fenwick was still without an
anchorage of his own. Martha the cook, who admitted him, not feeling
equal to the negotiation, had merely said--would he mind steppin' in
the parlour, and she would send Miss Sally up? and had departed
bearing Mrs. Nightingale's credential-card in a hand as free from
grease as an apron so deeply committed could make it, and brought Miss
Nightingale in from the garden, where she was gardening--possibly
effectually, but what do we know? When you are gardening on a summer
afternoon