CHAPTER X.
VANE TREVOR IS DISCUSSED AND APPEARS.
It was in this mysterious turbulent frame of mind that old Winnie Dobbs, bearing the Bible and book of family prayers, surprised Miss Violet Darkwell, and recalled Aunt Dinah from the sound and fury of forty years ago, now signifying no more than the discoloured paper on which they were recorded.
“Dear me! can it be a quarter to ten already?” exclaimed Miss Perfect, plucking her watch from her side and inspecting it. “So it is; come in.”
And fat Mrs. Podgers, the cook, and Tom, with his grimmest countenance, and the little girl with a cap on, looking mild and frightened.
So, according to the ancient usage of Gilroyd Hall, to William’s lot fell the reading of the Bible, and to Aunt Dinah’s that of the prayers, and then the little congregation broke up, and away went Vi to her bed-room, with old Winnie.
William was not worse, nor, I dare say, much better than other young Cambridge men of his day and college; but he liked these little “services” in which he officiated, and they entered into his serene and pleasant recollections of that sequestered habitation.