Amarilly looked apologetic.
"Not reg'lar. Thar's a meetin'-house down near us that we go to sometimes. Flamingus and me and Gus give a nickel apiece towards gittin' a malodeyon fer it, but it squeaks orful. 'Tain't much like the orchestry to the theayter. And then the preacher he whistles every time he says a word that has an 's' in it. You'd orter hear him say: 'Let us sing the seventy-seventh psalm.'"
At the succession of the sibilant sounds, John's brown eyes twinkled brightly, and about his mouth came crinkly, telltale creases of humor.
"And they sing such lonesome tunes," continued Amarilly, "slower than the one the old cow died on. I was tellin' the stage maniger about it, and he said they'd orter git a man to run the meetin'-houses that understood the proper settin's. Everything, he says, is more'n half in the settin's."
"Amarilly," was the earnest response, "will you come to St. Mark's next Sunday to the morning service? The music will please you, I am sure, and there are other things I should like to have you hear."
Amarilly solemnly accepted this invitation, and then went home, trundling a big cart which contained the surplices and the rectory laundry.
Colette's remarks, so innocently repeated to him, made John take himself to task.
"I knew," he thought rapturously, "that she was pure gold at heart. And it is only her sweet willfulness that is hiding it from me."
That evening he found Colette sitting before an open fire in the library, her slender little feet crossed before the glowing blaze. She was in a gentle, musing mood, but at his entrance she instantly rallied to her old mirth-loving spirit.
"I have made Amarilly's acquaintance," he said. "She is coming to church next Sunday."