“Is the Father expecting you, sir?”
“Well, not exactly at this moment evidently, or he would have told you to be ready for us. But we can wait, and my sister will be greatly obliged to you if you can let her just wash her face and hands.”
“I am on my way to mass, sir; the Father said nothing to me of your coming.”
“So I see, my good soul. But did he not tell you we were likely to come for breakfast?”
“The Father fasts until mass on Sunday, sir.”
“Yes, of course, but I am not a priest: nor is my sister.”
She hesitated and then led us into the study.
Volna threw herself with a sigh of fatigue on to one of the hard wooden chairs; took off her hat and with a smile exclaimed in the most natural way in the world: “Dear Father Ambrose. He is one of my mother’s dearest friends.”
It was such apparently ingenuous evidence of sincerity that the good woman was instantly and most favourably impressed.
“Excuse me a minute,” she said, and went out.