The day afterwards, the priest of Saint Aldate’s rapped at the door of the Walnut Tree. It was opened by Flemild, who made a low reverence when she saw him. With hand uplifted in blessing, and—“Christ save all here!”—he walked into the house, where Isel received him with an equally respectful courtesy.
“So I hear, my daughter, you have friends come to see you?”
“Well, they aren’t friends exactly,” said Isel: “leastwise not yet. May be, in time—hope they will.”
“Whence come they, then, if they be strangers?”
“Well,” replied Isel, who generally began her sentences with that convenient adverb, “to tell truth, Father, it beats me to say. They’ve come over-sea, from foreign parts; but I can’t get them outlandish names round my tongue.”
“Do they speak French or English?”
“One of ’em speaks French, after a fashion, but it’s a queer fashion. As to English, I haven’t tried ’em.”
The Reverend Dolfin (he had no surname) considered the question.
“They are Christians, of course?”
“That they are, Father, and good too. Why, they say their prayers several times a day.”