5
On the drive home Jollypot, who was sitting behind beside the Doña, remarked meditatively, “How lovely the Easter Sequentia is!... so sudden and dramatic!”
“Yes, yes,” said the Doña, who never failed to be irritated by Jollypot’s enthusiasm over the literary aspect of the Liturgy. “Oh, look at these trees! Everything is so very early.”
“I was following in my Missal,” Jollypot went on, “and I was suddenly struck by the words: Agnus redemit oves—the lamb redeems the sheep—they seemed to me so lovely: and I wondered ... I wondered if it weren’t always so ... the lamb redeeming the sheep, I mean ... ‘and a little child shall lead them,’ if ...” and she lowered her voice, “if little Jasper with his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament should redeem ... dear Pepa’s lamb ... do you think?...”
“What do you mean, Jollypot?” said the Doña severely.
“Well, I was wondering, dear Mrs. Lane ... if his wonderful child piety ...; if it ... if it mightn’t help dear Pepa.”
The Doña gave a snort: “The words in the Sequentia, Jollypot, refer to Christ and the Church—what could they have to do with Jasper and Pepa?” and she gave an involuntary sigh.
“What do you think of our seminarist?” she asked after a pause, in a low voice.
Jollypot, though she had lived with the Doña for years, had not yet learned to know when her voice was ironical:
“Oh, I think he’s a dear fellow,” she said enthusiastically, “so big and simple, and child-like and rugged, and such a jolly voice! And sometimes, too, he’s so pawky—oh, I think he’s a delightful fellow.”
The Doña gave a tiny shrug: “He seems to like staying with us very much,” she said drily.
“But how could he help it? You are all so jolly to him.”
“Yes; some of us are very hospitable,” and the Doña’s eyes rested for a moment on Teresa’s back; “still, one would have thought he might have recovered from his influenza by now.”