Part 2 (1/2)

”Do you mean if she would?”

”Well, yes. She is rather distant--reserved; I mean, that she seems so to strangers. You won't find _her_ offering to sing in your choir, or teach in your Sunday-school, or bring you flowers, or embroider your book-marks, or make sermon-covers for you, or dust the church, or have troubles in her mind which require your especial advice; _she_ won't be going off to distant mission stations on Sunday afternoons, walking miles over red-clay roads, and jumping brooks, while you go comfortably on your black horse. She'll be rather a contrast in St. John's just now, won't she?” And the warden's cough ended in the chuckle.

It was now after ten, and the choir was still practising. Mr. Phipps, indeed, had proposed going home some time before. But Miss Corinna Rendlesham having remarked in a general way that she pitied ”poor puny men” whose throats were always ”giving out,” he knew from that that she would not go herself nor allow Miss Lucy to go. Now Miss Lucy was the third Miss Rendlesham, and Mr. Phipps greatly admired her. Ferdinand Kenneway, wiser than Phipps, made no proposals of any sort (this was part of his correctness); his voice had been gone for some time, but he found the places for everybody in the music-books, as usual, and pretended to be singing, which did quite as well.

”I am convinced that there is some mistake about this second hymn,”

announced Miss Corinna (after a fourth rehearsal of it); ”it is the same one we had only three Sundays ago.”

”Four, I think,” said Miss Greer, with feeling. For was not this a reflection upon the rector's memory?

”Oh, very well; if it _is_ four, I will say nothing. I _was_ going to send Alexander Mann over to the study to find out--supposing it to be three only--if there might not be some mistake.”

At this all the other ladies looked reproachfully at Miss Greer.

She murmured, ”But your fine powers of remembrance, dear Miss Corinna, are _far_ better than mine.”

Miss Corinna accepted this; and sent Alexander Mann on his errand.

Ferdinand Kenneway, in the dusk of the back row, smiled to himself, thinly; but as nature had made him thin, especially about the cheeks, he was not able to smile in a richer way.

During the organ-boy's absence the choir rested. The voices of the ladies were, in fact, a little husky.

”No, it's all right; that's the hymn he meaned,” said Alexander Mann, returning. ”An' I ast him if he weern't coming over ter-night, an' he says, 'Oh yes!' says he, an' he get up. Old Senator Ashley's theer, an'

_he_ get up too. So I reckon the parson's comin', ladies.” And Alexander smiled cheerfully on the row of bonnets as he went across to his box beside the organ.

But Miss Corinna stopped him on the way. ”What could have possessed you to ask questions of your rector in that inquisitive manner, Alexander Mann?” she said, surveying him. ”It was a piece of great impertinence.

What are his intentions or his non-intentions to you, pray?”

”Well, Miss Corinna, it's orful late, an' I've blowed an' blowed till I'm clean blowed out. An' I knewed that as long as the parson stayed on over theer, you'd all--”

”All what?” demanded Miss Corinna, severely.

But Alexander, frightened by her tone, retreated to his box.

”Never mind him, dear Miss Corinna,” said little Miss Tappen, from behind; ”he's but a poor motherless orphan.”

”Perhaps he is, and perhaps he is _not_” said Miss Corinna. ”But in any case he must finish his sentence: propriety requires it. Speak up, then, Alexander Mann.”

”I'll stand by you, Sandy,” said Mr. Phipps, humorously.

”You said,” pursued Miss Corinna, addressing the box, since Alexander was now well hidden within it--”you said that as long as the rector remained in his study, you knew--”

”I knewed you'd all hang on here,” said Alexander, shrilly, driven to desperation, but safely invisible within his wooden retreat.

”Does he mean anything by this?” asked Miss Corinna, turning to the soprani.

”I am sure we have not remained a moment beyond our usual time,” said Miss Greer, with dignity.