'I suppose it wouldn't do for a clergyman to be cock-a-hoop,' he said presently.
'Well, not exactly, if he meant to be in any sense an example to his flock,' returned Mr. Yorke with a smile.
'I know I was very cock-a-hoop just before this disappointment came,' thought Cecil, 'and that last week I was careless and all. I wonder whether that is why all this has happened!'
He did not say any of this aloud, but it was not pride that kept him from the avowal, only a very natural and reasonable shyness of talking about himself. He stopped rocking, and sat with his gaze fixed on the trees in the distance, without really seeing them a bit. A new feeling of half-dismayed contrition was springing up in his heart, but the bitterness of resentment and the sense of injury were passing away.
He started when the church bells began to ring. There was evening prayer, with catechizing, at three o'clock at Wilbourne Church, and evening prayer again, with a sermon, at seven. 'Are you going, sir?' he said as Mr. Yorke rose up.
'Not to church now, but I must be off to Bar-end, where I have my class of hobbledehoys from the farms.'
'Do you think father will expect me at the catechizing?'
'I should think he would be glad to see you there.'
'I mustn't stand with the choir, I suppose,' said Cecil, hesitating.
'No; but I think, if I were you, I should be all the more anxious to go. You're not sulking, I can see, Cecil; so why should you let any one think you are?'