“It is eau-de-Cologne, and there is a smaller bottle of wood violet.”
“Out of fashion, but still....” said he, and made a note of it.
Then entered a very respectable-looking gentleman, who at once gave a tone of staidness to the whole proceedings. And behind him came his wife, who was matronly and very richly dressed, and behind her came four children, three girls and a boy, and they all sat down in the pew behind the elegant lady. The eldest girl curtsied before she went into the seat at a big crucifix on which Christ was hanging, but it was lost, except that Plucritus noted it most carefully. Then there came in three girls all together, and one of them was giggling, and when she knelt down to pray she giggled more than ever, and then the next began to titter, and finally the third was overcome also. And still Plucritus noted it and passed a sketch of it to me, so that I wondered at his great ability in drawing. Next entered another very, very elegant woman, and she walked up to the top pew, and when there she crossed herself and curtsied, and then went in and knelt down and prayed with her face covered, so that it must have been very real to her.
Next came two young men, who sat on the seat opposite the girls who giggled, and that somehow or other made them giggle more.
“What are those two young men doing?” asked Plucritus of me.
“So far as I can make out, nothing.”
“I thought so. Did they say any prayer when they came in?”
“I did not notice.”
“You should be more exact. I don’t think they did. At any rate I have it down that they did not.”
After that a very pompous gentleman with a gold watch-chain arrived. All the way up the aisle he breathed heavily. He sat down in his place with an extra sigh, and nodded to his prayer-book, and passed his hand over the bald place on his head and leant back.