A madonna-like face, a pair of honest, steadfast, speaking, grey eyes were ever before me; although I could not actually see her, except when we stood up during the service, according to the ordinances of the rubric, as she sat a long way off. Notwithstanding my usual attachment towards them, I felt inclined to quarrel with the high pews that hid her from my sight; and, I’m afraid, despised Bishop Burnet for his innovation. The vicar, they told me afterwards, preached a simple, beautiful sermon, that struck home to the hearts of every one present; but I heard none of it. My sermon was in my heart, and bore for its text one little word of four letters. O Min, Min! you had a good deal to answer for.
“Long was the good man’s sermon,
Yet it seemed not so to me;
For he spoke of Ruth the beautiful,
And still I thought of thee.
“Long was the prayer he uttered,
Yet it seemed not so to me;
For in my heart I prayed with him,
And still I thought of thee!”
After service, of course everybody met everybody else, each of their own respective little world, at the church door, exchanging those good wishes and seasonable greetings proper to the day.
There was a grand throng without the porch. Horner was there. It would have been nothing at all without him and his eye-glass. He did not appear to bear me any hard feelings, I was glad to see, for my unkindness of the morning. He nodded affably, and said “’do!” to me, in his usual way, as if he had not met me before.
Min and her mother did not linger as did the other parishioners; so, I had only an opportunity of a passing bow, without that other tender little hand-clasp which I had hoped for. But she looked at me, and that was something.
Lady Dasher, however, stopped for a minute or two; so did her daughters.
“Beautiful weather for Christmas, Lady Dasher,” hazarded I. She evidently did not agree with me, for she looked about her mournfully, with a down-drawn visage, just as if we were all attending a funeral, of which she was the chief mourner.
“Really, Mr Lorton, do you think so?” came her answer at length. “Don’t you find it very cold?”
“Dear me, ma! why you said last Christmas that it was too warm!” said her daughter Bessie.
“Ah! Mr Lorton,” continued her mother, not noticing her remark, “we never have those good, old-fashioned Christmases that we had when my poor dear papa was alive!”