“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Caiaphas. “We hoped that he would be here some time during the latter part of the month, but I doubt now if he will be on until May. He says these fishery negotiations are keeping them all very busy just now.”
Gilderman laughed. “I dare say,” he said, “that the government might dispense with Horace for a few weeks if he would make a special point of it.”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Caiaphas; “he writes that he’s very busy.”
The two younger daughters, Ella and Frances–slim, angular girls–the one of twelve, the other of fourteen, were sitting under the light of the table-lamp reading. Ella, the elder of the two, kept her finger-tips corked tightly in her ears to shut out the conversation while she read. The others sat by the fire, Mrs. Caiaphas shading her face from the blaze with a folded newspaper. The bishop appeared to be very preoccupied. Every now and then Mrs. Caiaphas glanced towards him from behind the newspaper. “Don’t worry so much about those Kettles, Theodore,” said she.
He looked up, almost with a start. Then he laughed. “Why, I don’t think that I was worrying about the Kettles,” he said. “I was thinking about raising money to finish that central light of the great chancel window at the cathedral. Mrs. Hapgood had promised fifty thousand dollars towards it before she died, but she left no provision for it in her will, and her heirs do not seem willing to carry out her intentions.”
“How much will it cost to finish it?” said Gilderman.
“Well,” said the bishop, “according to the plan of White & Wall it will cost between sixty and eighty thousand dollars.”
“Whew!” whistled Gilderman. Then presently he asked: “Couldn’t it be done for less than that?”
“It might,” said the bishop; “but White & Wall’s design is very beautiful.”
“It ought to be,” said Gilderman. “Look here, sir; why don’t you get a lot of your friends together–Dorman-Webster and the rest of those old fellows–and put it to them? I dare say you could raise it in that way.”