Molly, slim and elegant in her finery, moved once or twice in the pew. Alexina could not quite tell if she was listening. But she was. “Dear me,” she said, from under the shadow of her lace parasol, as they walked home, “how wearing it must be to be so—er—intense.” She spoke lightly, but she shivered a little. The Reverend Henderson had laid stress upon his text, “In the midst of life we are in death!”
As they went up the hotel steps Molly turned and looked around her and Alexina turned too, since it was Molly’s mood. The sky was blue, the air breathed with life and glow and sparkle. There was a taste almost of sea about it. On the prim young orange trees about the new houses across the street the fruit hung golden.
“He used to reach them for me—Father Bonot did,” said Molly, slowly, “before I was tall enough. They’re sweeter—Louisiana oranges are. I used to run and hide behind his skirts, too, when I was afraid my mother was going to whip me.”
They went in. Half way up the stairs Molly paused. “You Blairs, you’re all like him—not like Father Bonot.”
“Like who?” asked Alexina.
“Like Mr. Henderson. You Blairs and Mr. Henderson would have pulled aside your skirts so my mother could have caught me and whipped me.”
Something like apprehension sprang into Alexina’s eyes. “Oh,” she said anxiously, “no; surely I’m not like that, and Aunt Harriet’s not!”
“Yes, you are,” said Molly stubbornly, “you all of you are. It’s because”—a sort of childish rage seized on her—“it’s because you’re all of you so—so damnably sure of your duty.” And Molly’s foot stamped the landing in her little fury.
It was funny, so funny that Alexina laughed. And perhaps it was true. She could have hugged Molly; she never came so near to being fond of Molly before.
December arrived, Christmas came and went. Life was almost pastoral—no, hardly that; it was more un fete champetre. Each day after breakfast the hotel emptied itself into the sunshine and merriment, emptied itself, that is, of all but the invalids. Molly shunned these. She never even looked the way of one if she could help it.