"Dear me! No! My Minnie don't go to Church without she's dressed suitable. I couldn't get her ready under twenty minutes. She's in her oldest frock, and not a tucker to it; and I wouldn't have her go without—not for nothing. And them curls do take a lot of time. Not as I grudge it, if it's a duty."
"A duty! But what do curls and tuckers matter?" cried Dorothea. "What does it matter how she is dressed, if only she is there? We don't go to Church to show off our best dresses. At least, I hope not. Let me have Minnie as she is, only with her hair smooth. If I don't care, who else will mind? Curls don't signify. Do let her come! It seems so sad to stay away for nothing on Christmas Day."
No; Mrs. Stirring scouted the proposal. Minnie to go to Church in an old frock and uncurled hair! She was scandalised. What would the neighbours think? Dorothea had to give in, and turn away.
"As if it mattered how one is dressed—there!" she thought.
Shutting the hall door, she went briskly down the street, with a delicious feeling of freedom. She would not have felt so free, perhaps, if even Minnie had been her companion.
It was a sharp day, and for London tolerably clear. Something of wintry haze hung overhead, of course; but a red sun made efforts to pierce it. Puddles in the road were frozen, and here and there a slippery slide might be seen upon the pavement, perilous for elderly people.
The parting interview with Mrs. Stirring had almost made Dorothea late. As she drew near the bells stopped, and her pace became something like a run. She gained the nearest side-door and went softly in.
The Church, a large red brick building, was already crowded, and Dorothea, glancing round, saw no vacant seat; but somebody beckoned to her, and room was made. Almost immediately the choir burst into the old Christmas hymn, "Hark! the herald angels sing," and the congregation joined with heartiness.
Among all that mass of people, Dorothea knew not a single person, and not a single person knew her. She was a stray unit from a distance dropped into their midst.
Yet the lonely and forlorn sensations which had so often assailed her during the past week did not assail her here. Strangers though these people were to her, and she to them, they were one in a Divine fellowship, they served the same Master, they prayed the same prayers, they sang the same hymns; nay, with many of the throng, she would soon be united yet more closely, for they would "partake" of the same "holy food."