Chapter Eight.
Mary’s Approach.
“The chaise was stayed,
But yet was not allowed
To drive up to the door, lest all
Should say that she was proud.”
Cowper.
Dr Fogram was true to his word, and made his appearance at the Long Vacation. The Carbonels, to whom little eager Sophia had been added a day or two previously, first saw him at Downhill Church, where he made a most dignified appearance, in a very full surplice, with his Doctor of Divinity’s red hood over it. The clerk, small, grey-haired, and consequential, bustled up to open the pulpit door for him, and he preached, in a fine, sonorous voice, a very learned sermon, that might have been meant for his undergraduates at Oxford.
It was the day for afternoon service at Uphill, so the sisters had to hurry away to eat their luncheon in haste, and then to introduce Sophy to the Sunday School, where she was to teach a class of small ones, a matter of amazing importance and ecstasy.
She was a damsel of thirteen, in a white frock and cape, a pink sash, pink kerchief round her neck, pink satin ribbons tying down her broad Leghorn hat over her ears, in what was called gipsy fashion. She had rosy cheeks, blue, good-natured eyes, and shining, light-brown curls all round her head. Her appearance in the school was quite as memorable to the children as Dr Fogram’s could be to their elders, and the little ones were so engaged in looking at her that they quite forgot to be naughty, except that Billy Mole, in curiosity to know what anything so glossy and shining could be, pinched the end of her sash, and left the grimy mark of his little hot hands on it, which caused Maitland the maid, who had charge of her toilette, to declare that such things always came of going among “they nasty, dirty little brats.”
Dr Fogram rode over on a plump, shining, black horse, followed by a well-equipped groom. He dismounted, and gave his horse to the man when he overtook the Carbonel party on the way up the hill.
“Captain Carbonel, I believe,” said he, touching his hat, almost a shovel. “Will you do me the honour to introduce me to the ladies,” and to them he uncovered with the grand formal politeness which even then was becoming rather old-fashioned and which they returned with curtsies, Sophia’s, being fresh from the dancing-master, the most perfect of all.
“I understand,” said he, “that I am greatly indebted to you for pains taken with this unfortunate parish.”
“We have been trying to do what we could,” said Mrs Carbonel, to whom this was chiefly addressed.