“Where congregations ne’er break up,
And Sabbaths never end,”—
a notion which has cast a gloom over so many children’s hearts, seemed to him in his present mood after all not so impossible.
When the service was really over, and the people began to disperse, he was in a fever lest he should be unable to reach her, and it was not until he had discovered that Bridget was her companion that he could feel at all secure of any real talk with her.
Ivy, quite unconscious of all this, wondered a little when he paused in the nave; but she did not at all object to standing there with him, looking into the dim beauty of the stately building, and with a proud little consciousness that many people glanced at them as they passed by. It was so nice, she reflected, to go to church with a man like Ralph, a man wholly unlike any other she had yet come across in her short and rather dreary life.
Meanwhile, Evereld was drawing nearer. Ivy was just admiring her dark-green jacket and toque with their beaver trimmings, and longing to have just such a costume herself, when she saw a vivid colour suffuse the wearer’s face, her blue eyes shone radiantly, her lips smiled such a welcoming smile at Ralph that no words, no hand-clasp, seemed necessary. Side by side they passed together out of the Abbey, while Ivy, in blank surprise, followed in their wake.
“To think that you were there all the time and that I never knew it,” said Evereld, when the greetings were over. “Where is Bridget? How surprised she will be. Look, Bridget, here is Mr. Ralph come back.”
“An’ it’s glad I am to see you, sir. There’ll be no need, I’m thinkin’, to wish you a happy Christmas, for I can see by your face that you’ve got it.”
Ralph did, indeed, seem to be in the seventh heaven of happiness, but as he gave a cordial greeting to the old servant he happened to notice Ivy’s wistful, little face, and, with a pang of reproach for having altogether forgotten her, he took her hand in his and introduced her to Evereld.
“This is a little friend of mine,” he said. “The granddaughter of Professor Grant, my elocution master.” Evereld liked the look of the little fairylike figure, but she seemed to her the merest child, and after a few kindly words she thought no more of her, being naturally absorbed in Ralph and having so much to say to him after their long separation.