“You’re going, Sally?” he said.

“Yes, father.”

He stood up from his chair and looked at her—­looked her up and down as though he wished the sight of her to last in his memory for the rest of his life.

“What time do you get to London?”

“Half-past one.”

“And you’ve arranged about where you’re going to stay?”

“Yes, I’m going to share rooms with Miss Hallard—­”

“The girl who’s going to be an artist?”

“Yes; she has lodgings near Kew.”

“Ah, Kew.  Yes, Kew.  I remember walking from Kew to Richmond, along by the gardens, when I was quite a young man.  So you’re going there, Sally?” His eyes still roamed over her.

“Yes, father.  What are you doing?  Are you writing a sermon?”

That little interest in his own affairs awakened him.  Animation crept into his eyes.  It was the slight, subtle touch that a woman knows how to bestow.

“Yes, I’m writing a sermon, Sally, for next Sunday—­Easter Sunday—­listen to this—­” In the pride of composition, having none but her who would appreciate his efforts, he took up one of the papers with almost trembling hands.

“There can be no hope without promise, and in the rising of our Lord from the dead, we have the promise of everlasting life.  For just as He, on that Sabbath morning, defied the prison walls of the sepulchre, and was lifted beyond earthly things to those things that are spiritual, so shall we, if we defy the things of this world—­its pomps and its vanities and all the sinful lusts of the flesh—­so shall we win to the things that are eternal rather than those which are temporal and void.”

He looked up at her, waiting eagerly for the words of her approval to convince him of what he was scarcely convinced himself.  Before she could utter them, Mrs. Bishop entered the room.

“Samuel,” she said, “I’ve written my letter to Lady Bray.  I’ve asked her to come on the seventeenth.  You’d better write yours and enclose it with mine.  You know what to say.  I mean you know what sort of thing she likes from you.  I’ve also written and asked the Colles’s to come to dinner on the eighteenth to meet her.  They’re sure to accept if they know they’re going to meet her, and I think they ought to be useful.  Write your letter now, will you?”

The Rev. Samuel nodded assent.  “I will,” he added.

Then he turned to his daughter.  “Good-bye, Sally.”

She put her hands on his shoulders—­knowing all his frailty—­and kissed him.  Then she walked out of the room.

When she had closed the door, the clergyman sat down again to his desk and read again through the sentences he had read to Sally.

“I suppose she didn’t think it very true,” he said to himself, “but it is—­it is true—­its pomps and its vanities, ah—­”

Then he took out a sheet of note-paper, and picking up his pen, he began—­

“My dear Lady Bray—­”