The return of the rest of the family kept the days that succeeded their return extremely lively.  Jeanie was in higher spirits than Avery had ever seen her.  She seemed more childish, more eager for fun, as though some of the zest of life had got into her veins at last.  Her mother ascribed the change to Avery’s influence, and was pathetic in her gratitude, though Avery disclaimed all credit declaring that the sea-air had wrought the wonder.

When Lennox Tudor saw her, he looked at Avery with an odd smile behind his glasses.  “You’ve built the wall,” he said.

They had met by the churchyard gate, and Jeanie and Pat were having a hopping race down the hill.  Avery looked after them with a touch of wistfulness.  “But I wish she could have been away longer.”

Tudor frowned.  “Yes.  Why on earth not?  The Reverend Stephen again, I suppose.  I wish I had had your letter sooner, though as a matter of fact I’m not in favour just now, and my interference would probably weigh in the wrong balance.  Keep the child out as much as possible!  It’s the only way.  She has made good progress.  There is no reason at present why she should go back again.”

No, there was no reason; yet Avery’s heart misgave her.  She wished she might have had longer for the building of that wall.  Good Friday was more or less a day of penance in the Vicar’s family.  It began with lengthy prayers in the dining-room, so lengthy that Avery feared that Mrs. Lorimer would faint ere they came to an end.  Then after a rigorously silent breakfast the children were assembled in the study to be questioned upon the Church Catechism—­a species of discipline peculiarly abhorrent to them all by reason of the Vicar’s sarcastic comments upon their ignorance.

At the end of this dreary exercise they were dismissed to prepare for church where there followed a service which Avery regarded as downright revolting.  It consisted mainly of prayers—­as many prayers as the Vicar could get in, rendered in an emotionless monotone with small regard for sense and none whatever for feeling.  The whole thing was drab and unattractive to the utmost limit, and Avery rose at length from her knees with a feeling of having been deliberately cheated of a thing she valued.  She left the church in an unwonted spirit of exasperation, which lasted throughout the midday meal, which was as oppressively silent as breakfast had been.

The open relief with which the children trooped away to the schoolroom found a warm echo in her heart.  She even almost smiled in sympathy when Julian breathed a deep thanksgiving that that show was over for one more year.

Neither Piers nor his grandfather had been in the church, and their absence did not surprise her.  She did not feel that she herself could ever face such a service again.  The memory of Piers at the organ came to her as she dressed to accompany the children upon their primrosing expedition, and a sudden passionate longing followed it to hear that music again.  She was feeling starved in her soul that day.