“You are an authority on quotations, I know; my father wants to verify
one for his sermon this morning. Can you help him? It is this:
'Revealed in love and sacrifice,
The Holiest passed before thine eyes,
One and the same, in threefold guise.'”
“It is Whittier, I know,” said Erica, promptly; “and I think it is in a poem called 'Trinitas.' Come home with me, and we will hunt for it.”
So they walked back together silently, and found the poem, and at Raeburn's request Brian stayed to breakfast, and fell back naturally into his old place with them all.
The following day Raeburn had to attend a meeting in the north of England; he returned on the Tuesday afternoon, looking, Erica fancied, tired and overdone.
“Railway journeys are not quite the rest they once were to me,” he confessed, throwing himself down in a chair by the open window while she brought him some tea. “This is very beguiling, little one; but see, I've all these letters to answer before five.”
“Your train must have been very late.”
“Yes, there was a block on the line, and we stopped for half an hour in the middle of a bean field bliss that a Londoner can't often enjoy.”
“Did you get out?”
“Oh, yes, and sat upon the fence and meditated to the great delectation of my olfactory nerves.”
Erica's laugh was checked by a knock at the door. The servant announced that a gentleman wanted to see Miss Raeburn.