The church is full and hot.  The windows are open, indeed, but only the infinitesimally small chink that church-windows ever do open.  The pew-opener sedulously closes the great door after every fresh entrance.  I kneel simmering through the Litany.  Never before did it seem so long!  Never did the chanted, “We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!” appear so endlessly numerous.

Under cover of my arched hands, shading my eyes, I peep at one after another of the family groups.  Most of them are behind me indeed, but there are still a good many that I can get a view of sideways.  Among these, the one that oftenest engages my notice is a small white woman, evidently a lady—­and, at the moment I first catch sight of her, with closed eyes and drawn-in nostrils, inhaling smelling-salts, as if to her, too, church was up-hill work this morning—­in a little seat by herself.  At the other pews one glance a piece satisfies me, but, having looked at her once, I look again.  I could not tell you why I do it.  There is nothing very remarkable about her in the matter of either youth or beauty, and yet I look.

The service is ended at length, but eagerly as I long for the fresh air, we are—­whether to mark our own dignity, or to avoid further scrutiny on the part of our fellow-worshipers—­almost the last to issue from the church.  At the porch we find Mr. Musgrave waiting.  A sort of mauvaise honte and a guilty conscience combine to disable me from promptly introducing him to my people, and before I recover my presence of mind, Algy has walked on with Barbara, and I am left to follow with Frank.

He does not seem in one of his most sunshiny humors, but perhaps the long morning service, so trying in its present arrangement of lengthy prayers, praises, and preaching, to a restless and irritable temper, is to blame for that.

“I suppose,” he says, speaking rather stiffly, “that I must congratulate you on the arrival of the first detachment.”

“First detachment of what?”

“Of your family.  I understood you to say that there were to be relays of them during all Sir Roger’s absence.”

“It is to be hoped so, I am sure,” I say, devoutly; “especially” (looking up at him with mock reproach) “considering the way in which my friends neglect me.  You never came, after all!  No!” (seeing the utter unsmilingness of his expression, and speaking hastily), “I am not serious; I am only joking!  No doubt you heard that they had come, and thought that you would be in the way.  But, indeed you would not.  We had no secrets to talk; we should not have minded you a bit.”

“I did hear that they had arrived,” he answers, still speaking ungraciously, “but even if I had not, I should not have come!”

I look up in his face, and laugh.

“You forgot?  Ah, I told you you would!”

“I did not forget.”

Again I look up at him, this time in honest astonishment, awaiting the solution of his enigma.