"Dans mon pays, y'en a de plus jolies,
Dans mon pays, y'en a de plus jolies,
Et ran, tan, plan!"
"Rather a slap in the face!" laughed a jolly dowager to Horatia. "The young man evidently wishes to intimate that he is not for marrying any of our daughters."
"Oh, surely he had no such motive!" returned Miss Grenville. "Besides——" she began, and stopped, for it had suddenly occurred to her that she did not really know whether he were married or not.
She had no further speech that evening with the singer, but he appeared, mysteriously and unnecessarily to hand her into the carriage when it came round to the steps, though the master of the house was there for that purpose, and she had her father's assistance as well. But somehow, when it came to the point, it was the Frenchman who put her in.
"Thank you, thank you," said the Rector, as he shut the door. "I hope we shall see you again soon."
Armand de la Roche-Guyon bowed, and, stepping back into the circle of flickering light thrown downwards by the cressets at the foot of the steps, became for the second time that evening a disturbing picture.
CHAPTER VII
(1)
"And so, my dear friends," said the Rector, "terrible as is the idea of the punishment reserved for the ungodly...."
"Poor Papa!" thought Horatia, looking up out of the high Rectory pew at his handsome, kindly face, now clouded with the delivery of the sermon that cost him so much ingenuity.