“Jane Frost,” said Miss Horne, quickly turning the direction of her attack, “you must practise all this week. Suppose Father Dorward gets a new organ? You wouldn’t like not to be allowed to play on it. Some of your notes to-night weren’t like a musical instrument at all. The Nunc Dimittis was more like water running out of a bath. ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,’ are the words, not in pieces, which was what it sounded like the way you played it.”
Miss Jane Frost, a daughter of the woman who kept the Green Lanes shop, blushed as deeply as her anemia would let her, and promised she would do better next week.
“That’s right, Jane,” said Miss Hobart, whose part seemed to be the consolation of Miss Horne’s victims. “I dare say the pedal is a bit obstinate.”
“Oh, it’s turble obstinate,” said Cassandra, the sexton, who, having extinguished all the lamps, now elbowed her way through the clustered congregation, a lighted taper in her hand. “I jumped on un once or twice this morning to make um a bit easier like, but a groaned at me like a wicked old toad. It’s ile that a wants.”
The congregation, on which a good deal of grease was being scattered by Cassandra’s taper in her excitement, hastened to support her diagnosis.
“Oh yass, yass, ’tis ile that a wants.”
“I will bring a bottle of oil up during the week,” Miss Horne proclaimed. “Good night, everybody, and remember to be punctual next Sunday.”
The congregation murmured its good night, and Sylvia, to whom it probably owed such a speedy dismissal, was warmly greeted by Miss Horne.
“So glad you’ve come, Mrs. Iredale, though I wish you’d brought the lay rector. Lay rector, indeed! Sakes alive, what will they invent next?”
“Yes, we’re so glad you’ve come, dear,” Miss Hobart added. Mr. Dorward came up in his funny quick way. When they were all walking across the churchyard, he whispered to Sylvia, in his funny quick voice: