"Why hasn't see ast you?"
"Because, as I tell you, I was brought up in a different church."
"Why can't I be brought up in your church? Then we needn't neither of us never go," Edmund suggested, smiling radiantly, as though he had solved the difficulty.
Mr. Wycherly sighed deeply. "But I did go," he exclaimed. "I always went when I was a little boy, every Sunday, and afterward at Oxford I went nearly every day as well."
Edmund's face fell. He desired to belong to no church that required daily attendance. Mr. Wycherly's looks were so serious that the little boy began to be anxious.
"What will Aunt Esp'ance do, do you sink?"
"I fear she will feel compelled to punish you."
"Bed?" Edmund inquired uneasily.
"No, I fear, I very greatly fear it will be dinner——"
Mr. Wycherly felt the little figure stiffen in his arms, as without a word Edmund laid his head down on his old friend's shoulder. The child lay quite still, and glancing down at him Mr. Wycherly saw how the red mouth drooped at the corners, and the blue eyes were screwed up tight to keep back the tears. No such dread contingency had crossed Edmund's mind till this moment, and it swept over him with devastating force. Not to share in the Sunday dinner, that cheerful meal, when Mr. Wycherly made jokes and Aunt Esperance sat beaming in her Sunday silks; when hungry little boys were never refused two, even three, helpings of everything. It was a dreadful dispensation.