"He sings with unusual correctness, I believe," said the rector.
"Oh, he's correct—very! It's his only characteristic. I don't know of any other, unless you include his health: he lives principally for the purpose of not taking cold. Your choir is rather predominately feminine just now, isn't it?" added the old gentleman, slyly.
"Choirs are apt to be, are they not? I mean the volunteer ones. For the women everywhere come to church far more than the men do. It is one of the problems with which clergymen of the present day find themselves confronted."
"That the women come?"
"That the men do not." The rector spoke gravely. He was but little over thirty himself, yet he had been obliged more than once to put a mildly restraining pressure upon the somewhat too active gay-mindedness of his venerable junior warden.
"What's that thing they're trying now?" said this official, abandoning his jocularity. "Dull and see-saw it sounds to me; dull and see-saw."
"It's a Te Deum I selected for Trinity Sunday."
"Ah, if you selected it—But it can never equal 'old Jackson's,' never! That's Sophy Greer on the solo. She can no more do it than a consumptive hen. But, sir, I'll tell you who can—Sara Carroll. They expect her home to-night."
"Madam Carroll's daughter?"
"No, the Major's. Madam Carroll is the Major's second wife—didn't you know that? Sara Carroll, sir, can never hope to equal her step-mother in beauty, grace, or charm. But she is a fine girl in her way—as indeed she ought to be: her mother was a Witherspoon-Meredith."