“Nearly ten.”
“I must have been asleep, Thropper. The sounds sent me off.”
“You were homesick, I’ll bet,” he laughed. “That’s a fine description of it.”
“It wouldn’t be surprising, would it?” I asked.
“Not a bit,” he said, “but you just wait till you get to know the folks about here, and you’ll get over that.”
“Did you have a good service, Thropper?”
“Oh, fair,” he replied. “Fair. Miss Ebberds didn’t particularly like the sermon.”
“But she enjoyed the walk to and from it,” I laughed.
“Well,” he said earnestly, “I know I did.”
While he was preparing himself for bed, he said,