"Certainly not. Ask him to-day. But I would suggest five, if I might, to give us more time afterwards."
"Very well. Let it be five. And now we will go to church."
The ends of the old oak pews next the chancel were curiously carved. One had a ladder and a hammer and nails on it. Another a number of round flat things, and when you counted them you found that there were thirty. Another had a curious thing—I could not tell what, till one day I met an old woman carrying just such a bag. On another was a sponge on the point of a spear. There were more of such carvings; but these I could see from where I sat. And all the sermon was a persuading of the people that God really loved them, without any if or but.
Adela was very attentive to the clergy man; but I could see her glance wander now and then from his face to that of his brother, who was in the same place he had occupied on Christmas-day. The expression of her aunt's face was judicial.
When we came out of church, the doctor shook hands with me and said:
"Can I have a word with you, Mr. Smith?"
"Most gladly," I answered. "Your time is precious: I will walk your way."
"Thank you.—I like your plan heartily. But to tell the truth, I fancy it is more a case for my brother than for me. But that may come about all in good time, especially as she will now have an opportunity of knowing him. He is the best fellow in the world. And his wife is as good as he is. But—I feel I may say to you what I could not well say to the colonel—I suspect the cause of her illness is rather a spiritual one. She has evidently a strong mental constitution; and this strong frame, so to speak, has been fed upon slops; and an atrophy is the consequence. My hope in your plan is, partly, that it may furnish a better mental table for her, for the time, and set her foraging in new direction for the future."
"But how could you tell that from the very little conversation you had with her?"
"It was not the conversation only—I watched everything about her; and interpreted it by what I know about women. I believe that many of them go into a consumption just from discontent—the righteous discontent of a soul which is meant to sit at the Father's table, and so cannot content itself with the husks which the swine eat. The theological nourishment which is offered them is generally no better than husks. They cannot live upon it, and so die and go home to their Father. And without good spiritual food to keep the spiritual senses healthy and true, they cannot see the thing's about them as they really are. They cannot find interest in them, because they cannot find their own place amoungst them. There was one thing though that confirmed me in this idea about Miss Cathcart. I looked over her music on purpose, and I did not find one song that rose above the level of the drawing-room, or one piece of music that had any deep feeling or any thought in it. Of course I judged by the composers."