“All the same,” said Tom, after he had kissed her again and again,—“all the same, I shall find out, after church, where the snake is staying. I shall go to the hotel and take a cigar. I shall offer him one, and he is so mean and stingy that he will take it. Perhaps this may be one of his fool days. Perhaps somebody else will treat him to the whiskey. No, Matty! honor bright, _I_ will not, though that ten cents might give us all a Merry Christmas. Honor bright, I will not treat. But I am not a saint, Matty! If anybody else treats, I must not be expected to be far away.”
Then he wiped her eyes with his own handkerchief and led her in to the service. Their own pew was already full. He had to take her back into Dr. Metcalf’s pew.
So Matty was spared one annoyance which was prepared for her.
Directly in front of her father’s pew, sitting in the most conspicuous seat on the other side of the aisle, was the hateful Mr. Greenhithe.
Had he put himself there to watch Matty’s face?
If he did, he was disappointed. If he had persuaded himself he was to see a pale cheek or tearful eyes, or that he was going to compel her to drop her veil, he had reckoned quite without his host. Whenever he did look that way, all he saw was the face of Master Horace. Horace was engaged in counting the large tassels on his side of the pulpit curtains; in counting, also, the number of small tassels between them, and from the data thus obtained, in calculating how many tassels there must be on all the curtains to the pulpit, and how many on the curtains behind the rail to the chancel. Mr. Greenhithe, therefore, had but little comfort in studying Horace’s face.
Just as the Creed was finished, when the rest of the church was still, the sexton led up the aisle a grim-looking man, with a shaggy coat and a very dirty face, and brought him close to the door of Mr. Molyneux’s pew—as if he would fain bring him in. Mr. Molyneux was at the end of the pew, but happened to be turning away from the aisle, and the sexton actually touched him. He turned round and looked at the stranger,—evidently did not know him,—but with the instinct of hospitality, stepped into the aisle and offered him his seat. The stranger was embarrassed; hesitated as if he would speak, then shook his head in refusal of the attention, and crossing the aisle, took a seat offered him there, in full sight of Mr. Molyneux, and, indeed, of Matty.
Poor girl! The trifle—of course it was a trifle—upset her sadly.
Was the man a marshal or a sheriff? Would they really arrest her father on Christmas Day, in church?