"And she could sing the solo for us on Trinity Sunday?" said the rector, giving the helm a turn towards his anthem.
"She could," said the warden, with impartial accent, retreating a little when he found himself confronted by a date.
"Do you mean if she would?"
"Well, yes. She is rather distant—reserved; I mean, that she seems so to strangers. You won't find her offering to sing in your choir, or teach in your Sunday-school, or bring you flowers, or embroider your book-marks, or make sermon-covers for you, or dust the church, or have troubles in her mind which require your especial advice; she won't be going off to distant mission stations on Sunday afternoons, walking miles over red-clay roads, and jumping brooks, while you go comfortably on your black horse. She'll be rather a contrast in St. John's just now, won't she?" And the warden's cough ended in the chuckle.
It was now after ten, and the choir was still practising. Mr. Phipps, indeed, had proposed going home some time before. But Miss Corinna Rendlesham having remarked in a general way that she pitied "poor puny men" whose throats were always "giving out," he knew from that that she would not go herself nor allow Miss Lucy to go. Now Miss Lucy was the third Miss Rendlesham, and Mr. Phipps greatly admired her. Ferdinand Kenneway, wiser than Phipps, made no proposals of any sort (this was part of his correctness); his voice had been gone for some time, but he found the places for everybody in the music-books, as usual, and pretended to be singing, which did quite as well.
"I am convinced that there is some mistake about this second hymn," announced Miss Corinna (after a fourth rehearsal of it); "it is the same one we had only three Sundays ago."
"Four, I think," said Miss Greer, with feeling. For was not this a reflection upon the rector's memory?
"Oh, very well; if it is four, I will say nothing. I was going to send Alexander Mann over to the study to find out—supposing it to be three only—if there might not be some mistake."
At this all the other ladies looked reproachfully at Miss Greer.
She murmured, "But your fine powers of remembrance, dear Miss Corinna, are far better than mine."