‘DEAR MR. ELDON,—I am much obliged to you for returning the “Christian Year.” Some papers were left in its pages by accident, and I now enclose them.
‘Miss Tew also brought me a message from you. I am sorry that I cannot do as you wish. I am unable to ask you to call, and I hope you will understand me when I say that any other kind of meeting is impossible.
‘I am, yours truly, ‘ADELA WALTHAM.’
It was Adela’s first essay in this vein of composition. The writing cost her an hour, and she was far from satisfied with the final form. But she copied it in a firm hand, and made it ready for posting on the morrow.
CHAPTER XIV
‘Between Richard Mutimer, bachelor, and Adela Marian Waitham, spinster, both of this parish’
It was the only announcement of the kind that Mr. Wyvern had to make this Sunday. To one of his hearers he seemed to utter the names with excessive emphasis, his deep voice reverberating in the church. The pews were high; Adela almost cowered in her corner, feeling pierced with the eyes, with the thoughts too, of the congregation about her.
She had wondered whether the Manor pew would be occupied to-day, but it was not. When she stood up, her eyes strayed towards it; the red curtains which concealed the interior were old and faded, the wooden canopy crowned it with dreary state. In three weeks that would be her place at service. Sitting there, it would not be hard to keep her thoughts on mortality.
Would it not have been graceful in him to attend church to-day? Would she in future worship under the canopy alone?