That was all they said aloud, but one of those wonderful unspoken conversations went on between them.
“How many more School-Feasts shall we see?” was what Mr. Thorpe’s heart said to Mrs. Thorpe’s.
And hers said to him—
“There are more behind us, dear, than before.”
Then, clear and faint, came the end of the hymn across the quiet fields—
“Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide.”
CHAPTER XII
Any gentleman who begins a sentence by saying “Elizabeth”—in the tone which Andy used near the mustard-field at Marshaven, is bound, if he be a man of honour, to complete that sentence at the earliest possible opportunity.