"Oh, I'm sorry!" she cried, "I thought this was the box of chocolates."
Hamlyn looked up wearily. To his immeasurable surprise, he saw that the girl's face had grown very pale. She shrunk away from the table.
"What's the matter, my dear?" he said, thoroughly alarmed.
She suddenly flushed a deep scarlet.
"What are these?" she said, pointing with a shaking finger to the things on the table.
"Them?" said Mr. Hamlyn in cheerful surprise. "Mass wafers, my dear. I buy them in a shop in Covent Garden. We distribute them among the Luther Lecturers, for object lessons to the poor deluded Ritualists."
The girl had crouched to the wall of the room. Hamlyn was seriously alarmed. Her face was almost purple, her eyes started out of her head.
"They're not con—consecrated?" she gasped.
Hamlyn could not understand her emotion. "No," he said; "why, Gussie, what a superstitious little thing you are. And if they were, what then?" Frank amazement showed on his face.
"Oh, nothing, Mr. Hamlyn," the girl said at length, becoming more normal in her manner.