“Horrible vulgarians,” Mrs. Hilary commented, really meaning Rosalind at the age of eleven.  “They have meetings on the parade every morning now.  The police ought to stop it.”

Grandmama was beating time with her hand on the arm of her chair to the merry music-hall tune and the ogreish words.

        “Blood!  Blood! 
    Rivers of blood for you,
    Oceans of blood for me! 
All that the sinner has got to do
    Is to plunge into that Red Sea. 
        Clean!  Clean! 
    Wash and be clean! 
Though filthy and black as a sweep you’ve been,
The waves of that sea shall make you clean....”

“That,” Mrs. Hilary asserted, with disgust, “is a most disagreeable way of worshipping God.”  She was addicted to these undeniable statements, taking nothing for granted.

“But a very racy tune, my dear,” said Grandmama, “though the words are foolish and unpleasing.”

Gilbert said, “A stimulating performance.  If we don’t restrain her, Rosalind will be getting saved again.”

He was proud of Rosalind’s vitality, whimsies and exuberances.

Rosalind, who had a fine rolling voice, began reciting “General Booth enters into heaven,” by Mr. Vachell Lindsay, which Mrs. Hilary found disgusting.

“A wonderful man,” said Grandmama, who had been reading the General’s life in two large volumes.  “Though mistaken about many things.  And his Life would have been more interesting if it had been written by Mr. Lytton Strachey instead of Mr. Begbie; he has a better touch on our great religious leaders.  Your grandfather,” added Grandmama, “always got on well with the Army people.  He encouraged them.  The present vicar does not.  He says their methods are deplorable and their goal a delusion.”

Rosalind said “Their methods are entrancing and their goal the Lord.  What more does he want?  Clergymen are so narrow.  That’s why I had to give up being a churchwoman.”

Rosalind had been a churchwoman (high) for nine months some six years ago, just after planchette and just before flag days.  She had decided, after this brief trial, that incense and confessions, though immensely stimulating, did not weigh down the balance against early mass, Lent, and being thrown with other churchwomen.

4

“What about a bathe?” Neville suggested to all of them.  “Mother?”

Mrs. Hilary, a keen bather, agreed.  They all agreed except Grandmama, who was going out in her donkey chair instead, as one does at eighty-four.

They all went down to the beach, where the Army still sang of the Red
Sea, and where the blue high tide clapped white hands on brown sand.

One by one they emerged from tents and sprang through the white leaping edge into the rocking blue, as other bathers were doing all round the bay.  When Mrs. Hilary came out of her tent, Neville was waiting for her, poised like a slim girl, knee-deep in tumbling waves, shaking the water from her eyes.