"I wonder 't they let you in, if you wore them ragged duds," remarked Mrs. Hunt.
"The bishop asked me to go in an' he took me in himself," retorted Tode, defiantly.
"For the land's sake," exclaimed Mrs. Hunt. "He must be a queer kind of a bishop!"
"A splendid kind of a bishop, I should think," put in Nan, and the boy responded quickly,
"He is so! I never see a man like him."
"Never see a man like him? What d'ye mean, Tode?" questioned Mrs. Hunt.
Tode looked at her as he answered slowly, "He's a great big man--looks like a king--an' his eyes look right through a feller, but they don't hurt. They ain't sharp. They're soft, an'--an'--I guess they look like a mother's eyes would. I d'know much 'bout mothers, 'cause I never had one, but I should think they'd look like his do. I tell ye," Tode faced Mrs. Hunt and spoke earnestly, "a feller'd do 'most anything that that bishop asked him to--couldn't help it."
Mrs. Hunt stared in amazement at the boy. His eyes were glowing and in his voice there was a ring of deep feeling that she had never before heard in it. It made her vaguely uncomfortable. Her Dick had never spoken so about any bishop, nor indeed, about anybody else, and here was this rough street boy whom she considered quite unfit to associate with Dick--and the bishop himself had taken him into church.
Mrs. Hunt spoke somewhat sharply. "Well, I must say you were a queer-lookin' one to set in a pew in a church like St. Mark's."
Nan looked distressed, and Tode glanced uneasily at his garments. They certainly were about as bad as they could be. Even pins and twine could not hold them together much longer.