"Yes," said Helen faintly. She had no eye for architectural beauties, and the scantily-filled church had struck her on Sunday as cold and dreary.
"I suppose that our village singing sounded very poor to you after that in the London churches," went on Mr. Bayden, the faintest suspicion of a self-satisfied smile dawning in the corners of his mouth.
"Yes," said Helen again, but with more decision. Her musical ears had really been tortured by the discordant sounds produced by a choir of village boys habited in soiled surplices, and engaged apparently in a desperate attempt to outshout one another. Her frank assent was unfortunate, however. Mrs. Bayden was proud of her choir, which she managed, as she did everything else in the parish, but being entirely destitute of musical taste she was quite unaware that the results obtained by her efforts were not musically satisfactory, although a volume of sound was not lacking. Helen was dimly conscious that she had said something wrong, and her relief was considerable when Harold, a lad of about twelve, who was seated beside her, looked up into her face with his merry blue eyes and said:
"I think our boys make a horrid noise, especially Jim Hunt. I saw you looking at him. You can hear his voice over everybody's. I don't sing at all when I sit by him."
"Harold, how wicked of you!" said his mother. "You don't deserve the privilege of sitting in the choir. Jim Hunt is an excellent boy, and his voice is most useful."
Agatha, her mother's echo, murmured, "How wicked!" upon which Harold told her to "shut up."
"Mother, do you hear that?" cried Agatha in her high-pitched tones.
"Harold, Harold!" interposed Mr. Hayden nervously, "be good, pray. You don't want to be punished again, do you?"
"She has no business to interfere," persisted Harold. "Mother may say I'm wicked; she sha'n't."
"Harold!" cried Mrs. Bayden in a warning voice, after which there was an instant's pause while hands wore joined, and Mr. Bayden murmured a hasty and inaudible grace.