“He can’t help being a bad boy,” wept Sally in concert. “But I brought him for you to make him want to be good.”
“I like you to call me Parson Andy,” said that gentleman, pulling up a weeping parishioner upon each knee, and proceeding to administer choice bits of bread and butter laden with marmalade to each in turn, with the tale of “The White Cat” as a mental restorative.
It was upon this group that Mrs. Stamford was ushered in by the excited little maid-servant.
“Sorry to interrupt you at breakfast, but——” began Mrs. Stamford. Then she broke off. “What’s this?”
“A lady and gentleman who called to consult me in a spiritual difficulty,” said Andy, rising. “I’ll see them to the door and then I am at your service.”
Mrs. Stamford sat down, her old tweed skirt very wet about the hem with crossing the grass field, and her weather-beaten hat well over her eyes, but her appearance indefinably more emotional than usual.
“I’ve come,” she said without further circumlocution, “to tell you we shall be obliged to have the wedding at Gaythorpe Church.”
“What wedding?” said Andy, though he knew.
“Dick’s, of course,” said Mrs. Stamford, and she might just as well have said, “What a fool you are!”
“Why?” asked Andy, and he had a difficulty even in saying that.