Pierson read the letter.  “Poor George!”

“When are you going to let me be a nurse, Daddy?”

“We must wait till you’re eighteen, Nollie.”

“I could easily say I was.  It’s only a month; and I look much more.”

Pierson smiled.

“Don’t I?”

“You might be anything from fifteen to twenty-five, my dear, according as you behave.”

“I want to go out as near the front as possible.”

Her head was poised so that the sunlight framed her face, which was rather broad—­the brow rather too broad—­under the waving light-brown hair, the nose short and indeterminate; cheeks still round from youth, almost waxen-pale, and faintly hollowed under the eyes.  It was her lips, dainty yet loving, and above all her grey eyes, big and dreamily alive, which made her a swan.  He could not imagine her in nurse’s garb.

“This is new, isn’t it, Nollie?”

“Cyril Morland’s sisters are both out; and he’ll be going soon.  Everybody goes.”

“Gratian hasn’t got out yet:  It takes a long time to get trained.”

“I know; all the more reason to begin.”

She got up, looked at him, looked at her hands, seemed about to speak, but did not.  A little colour had come into her cheeks.  Then, obviously making conversation, she asked: 

“Are you going to church?  It’s worth anything to hear Uncle Bob read the Lessons, especially when he loses his place.  No; you’re not to put on your long coat till just before church time.  I won’t have it!”

Obediently Pierson resigned his long coat.

“Now, you see, you can have my rose.  Your nose is better!” She kissed his nose, and transferred her rose to the buttonhole of his short coat.  “That’s all.  Come along!” And with her arm through his, they went down.  But he knew she had come to say something which she had not said.

2

Bob Pierson, in virtue of greater wealth than the rest of the congregation, always read the Lessons, in his high steamy voice, his breathing never adjusted to the length of any period.  The congregation, accustomed, heard nothing peculiar; he was the necessary gentry with the necessary finger in the pie.  It was his own family whom he perturbed.  In the second row, Noel, staring solemnly at the profile of her father in the front row, was thinking:  ’Poor Daddy!  His eyes look as if they were coming out.  Oh, Daddy!  Smile! or it’ll hurt you!’ Young Morland beside her, rigid in his tunic, was thinking:  ‘She isn’t thinking of me!’ And just then her little finger crooked into his.  Edward Pierson was thinking:  ‘Oh!  My dear old Bob!  Oh!’ And, beside him, Thirza thought:  ’Poor dear Ted I how nice for him to be having a complete rest!  I must make him eat he’s so thin!’ And Eve was thinking:  ‘Oh, Father!  Mercy!’ But Bob Pierson was thinking:  ‘Cheer oh!  Only another three verses!’ Noel’s little finger unhooked itself, but her eyes stole round to young Morland’s eyes, and there was a light in them which lingered through the singing and the prayers.  At last, in the reverential rustle of the settling congregation, a surpliced figure mounted the pulpit.