Part 5 (1/2)

'The wind is getting up, but that one must expect at this time of the year, and a good blow now and then won't hurt the girls. I feel ever so much the better for the touch of it we had this afternoon. I'm certain it is a very healthy place.'

Mrs. Vane smiled a little.

'I have noticed that that is generally said of places that have nothing else to recommend them. But no,' she went on, 'I must not begin by finding fault. If it proves to us a health-giving place I certainly shall like it, whatever else it is or is not. Did you go into the church this afternoon?'

'Just for a moment. Rough wanted to glance at it,' Mr. Vane replied, his tone sounding rather less cheerful.

'It looked very dingy and dismal,' Randolph said. 'It's all high pews and high-up windows, you know, mamma. Papa says it must have been built at the very ugliest time for churches, before they began to improve at all.'

'And there is nothing to be done to it,' said Mr. Vane. 'Even if we could attempt it and had the money, there would be endless difficulties in the way of prejudice and old a.s.sociations to overcome.'

'And it is not as if we were really settled here,' said the children's mother. 'You must not take the church to heart, Bernard; you could scarcely expect anything better in a place like this.'

'No--it will be slow work to bring about any improvement in outlying places of this kind certainly,' Mr. Vane agreed. Then he brightened up a little. 'There is a very good organ, and I met the organist. He seems very hearty and eager.'

'That's a good thing. How did you come across him?' asked Mrs. Vane.

'We went to the stationer's to order the newspapers. I might of course have had them straight from town, but I think it is right to get what one can in the place, and it helps me to get to know the people a little. The organist--Redding is his name--was in the shop; I fancy he's a bit of a gossip, for he looked rather guilty when we went in, just as if they had been talking about us, and then he introduced himself. He's coming up to have a talk with me to-morrow.'

'It is quite a nice shop,' said Randolph. 'I expect it has some of the College custom. I saw some books with the College crest on lying about.

You can get painting things there, Alie,' he added.

Rosalys looked interested, and Biddy's face grew some degrees less long.

'Is there a toy-shop?' she asked.

'There's better than a toy-shop--a wonderful sort of place they call a bazaar,' Rough replied. 'You may walk all round and look at the things without having to buy, and there's one part where all the toys are only a penny.'

Biddy clasped her hands in ecstasy.

'Oh, mamma,' she said, '_may_ we go and see it to-morrow? Oh, I'm sure Seacove is ever so much nicer than London!'

Mr. Vane smiled.

'How many pennies have you got to spend, Biddy?' he said.

Biddy's face sobered again, and the corners of her mouth went down.

'I've got two,' she said in a very meek voice, 'and there would have been another to-morrow, that's Sat.u.r.day, if--I--hadn't----'

'What?' asked Mr. Vane.

'Tore my frock,' said Biddy very slowly.

'_Torn_, if you please,' said her father. 'Well, suppose mamma lets you off as it's the first Sat.u.r.day at Seacove, that will be threepence, and suppose I give you three pennies more, that will be sixpence--with sixpence you could make important purchases at the penny counter, could she not, Rough?'

'Certainly, I should say,' Randolph replied.

Bridget's face crimsoned with pleasure. She got up from her seat and ran round to the arm-chair by the fire where Mr. Vane was quietly sipping his tea, and at the imminent risk of throwing it all over him, flung her arms round his neck.