Martha’s face lit up. “What a pity!” she cried. “She might have taken my bonnet to Miss Gentry to be re-trimmed.” Martha had become reconciled to this minor vanity, now it was strategically unnecessary. “However, your young legs can do that, dearie, now they’re back, can’t they?”
“With pleasure, mother,” he said, all unconscious of the lapsed plan. “Why waste money on carriers?”
She kissed him passionately, but seeing his anxiety to be at the Bible, she released him.
“I should look at Revelation, one, ten, Willie,” she advised, “and you’ll understand why the Sabbath——”
“Yes, yes,” he interrupted soothingly.
“Also Colossians, two, sixteen and seventeen—the seventh day is but a shadow of things to come.”
“I see,” he said, escaping.
It took hours of hard theological study—indeed till Saturday morning—before the reply to Jinny shaped itself:
“Sir,—Mr. William Flynt thanks Mr. Daniel Quarles for his esteemed epistle, and regrets to learn that a coach-horn of suitable size for a gentelman is not to be had in Chipstone. I beseech you, however, not to superscribe to Chelmsford as Methuselah cannot fetch such a compass, and the righteous man regardeth his beast. Neither do I require a horn at her hand now or henceforwards.
“Yours truly,