As the Vicar climbed the pulpit steps, the congregation settled themselves down with that moving in their pews with all customary signs of that spirit of patience every priest believes to be one of interest. Leaning her square, strong shoulders against the upright back of the Throgmorton pew, Mary composed her mind with mild attention. Fanny shifted her hassock to the most restful position for her feet. That sharp interrogative look of criticism drew itself out in the line of Jane's lips and steadied itself in her eyes. Hannah was the only one upon whose face a rapt expression fell. With all her gray hair and her forty years, she was the youngest of them all, still cherishing her ideals of the infallible priest in the man of cloth; still believing that the voice of God could speak even through the inferior brain of a country Vicar. Above all there were her children who the next morning would ask her what the sermon meant. It was necessary if only for their sakes she should not lose a word that was said.
After that pause on his knees when the Vicar's head was bent in prayer, he rose to his feet and, as he spread out the pages of his sermon before him, cast a significant glance around the church. This was preliminary to every sermon he preached. It was as though he said--"I cannot have any signs of inattention. If your minds have wandered at all during the service, they must wander no more. I feel I have got something to say which is vital to all of you."
All this happened that December morning, just as it had occurred every morning for the twenty years he had been the shepherd of their souls. It was almost as long as Mary could remember.
Having cast that glance about him, he cleared his throat--the same sounds as Jane once caustically remarked they had heard one thousand times, allowing two Sundays in the year for a locum tenens.
Then he gave out his text: "And the Angel said unto her--'Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God.'"
IX
Perhaps it was the sound of her own name there amongst all those people which stirred her mind and added a quicker beat of the pulse to Mary Throgmorton's heart. The full significance of the text, the circumstance to which it referred, these could not have reached her mind so swiftly, even though Fanny with a sharp turn of the head had looked at her.
"'Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God.'"
It was at first the sound of her name, the more as he repeated it. Listening to that habitual intonation of the Vicar's voice, it meant nothing to her as yet that Mary had found favor with her God. The only effect it had was the more completely to arrest her mind in a manner in which she had never been conscious of its arrest before. She folded her hands in her lap. It was a characteristic sign of attention in her. She folded her hands and raised her eyes steadily to the pulpit.
"There are some things," began the Vicar, "which it is necessary for us to understand though they are completely outside the range of our comprehension."