The service began, and Humphrey struggled down from his seat.
The villagers had grown accustomed, when the congregation stood up, to see the baronet rise tall and broad from his seat, and the little brown head of his son disappear altogether; but Uncle Charlie was by no means prepared for so complete a collapse, and thought his nephew had fallen. However, there he was, standing on the ground, with his eyes fixed on his prayer-book, and the walls of the pew towering over him on every side.
"Why on earth does he not stand on a stool?" was the young man's inward reflection.
Truth to say, the temptation to gain three feet in height, and get a view of what was passing around, had at times assailed Humphrey, but he felt sure his mother had never stood on the stool, and so he resisted the inclination.
And, indeed, if Lady Duncombe had mounted the very high structure which went by the name of a hassock, the effect would have been a trial to the gravity of the congregation.
Humphrey followed the service pretty well till the chanting began, and here he always got wrong. Do what he would he could not keep time with the rest, but always arrived at the end of the verse either too early or too late.
By slow degrees he had discovered that it did not do to sing straight through to the end, because there were some bits and words they sang over again; but how he was ever to discover which particular word or sentence they were going to repeat, was to him a perpetual puzzle.
He had a great admiration for the turns and shakes with which the old clerk varied the "Te Deum," and had once indulged in a mild imitation of the same; till he caught sight of his father frowning at him from the other end of the pew.
When the hymn was given out, Uncle Charlie saw Humphrey in great difficulties over finding his place, so he made a sign to him to come and share his hymn-book; but, with a most decided shake of the head, Humphrey produced his own, and, without moving from his place, held it out to have his place found.
As the young man returned it to his nephew, he saw on the fly-leaf the name "Adelaide Duncombe," in the well-known handwriting of his dead sister; and he did justice to the boy's motive.