It was the first Sunday after our return home. In the morning Fay, Annabel and I attended Divine Service in Restham Church, and "sat under" Arthur, Annabel in her usual place at the top of the Manor pew, and Fay close to me at the bottom, so that during the lessons and the sermon, and such unoccupied times, we could slip our respective hands into one another's without any one perceiving it. As I knelt in the church where I had worshipped from my childhood, and realised that to me had been given my heart's desire, I felt as one who came home with joy, bringing his sheaves with him, and I gave God thanks.
After the service was over we walked round the Manor House garden accompanied by Arthur, which was as much a part of the morning's ritual as the Litany or the prayer for the King. I believe Annabel would have thought it almost wicked to omit this sabbatic peregrination, if the weather permitted it. Certainly I could not remember a time when we had not walked round the garden every Sunday after service, remarking how the vegetable kingdom had either advanced or receded (according to the season of the year) since the preceding Sunday.
But if my sister would have included an omission of that Sunday morning's walk round the garden among those things left undone which she ought to have done, she certainly would have considered the taking of any further exercise on a Sunday as among the things which she ought not to have done; therefore Fay and I started off for a long walk that Sunday afternoon, unhampered by the encompassing presence of Annabel. A nap between lunch and tea was one of the most sacred rites of Annabel's strict sabbatic ritual.
"Now isn't it lovely to set out for a walk together and to feel that we've got the rest of our lives to finish it in, and that there's nothing to hurry home for?" exclaimed Fay, as we walked across the garden.
"There's nothing to hurry home for because we are home," I replied, as we went through the little gate which separated the lawn from the park: "wherever you are is home to me."
"Same here," retorted Fay; "like snails, we carry our home on our backs, which is very delightful and picnicky when you come to think of it."
"That's where we are so superior to snails," I pointed out; "they carry their own, while we carry each other's: a far finer type, if you'll permit me to say so."
"I remember once when I was a little girl, Mother corrected me for being vain, and said it was horrid of me to think I was pretty. I thought it over, and then I came back to her and explained that I didn't think I was pretty—I only thought I was better looking than a frog, and I asked her if it was 'vainness' to think I was better looking than a frog, and she agreed it wasn't. In the same way I don't think it is a 'vainness' of us to think we are finer characters than snails, do you?"
"By no means. And I go farther: I don't even think it is 'vainness' on your part to think you are pretty."
Fay laughed. "I'm glad it isn't, for I do."