CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON.
In Frances' very own book there was a story of a boy who had a beautiful voice, and who with a great many other boys sang in the choir of Christ Church. The story was somewhat sad, for the boy, who loved dearly to sing, lost his sweet voice one day and never found it again; but the memory of the music as it floated up to the Gothic arches, and of the sunlight from the great stained window falling a shaft of crimson and gold across the chancel at vesper service, remained with him, and out of it grew the story.
And the story became very real indeed to Frances when one Sunday afternoon her father took her to the very church where the boy used to sing. It was such a pleasure to her that after this she and her mother often went together, and Frances pretended that one of the choir boys, who happened to have dark eyes and a high clear voice, was little Jack, and there were certain hymns she loved to hear because he used to sing them.
It was the Sunday after Christmas, and Emma had just come up to know if she might go to church with Frances, when Gladys walked in, gorgeously arrayed in velvet and silk. Though rather over-dressed she looked very pretty, but as soon as she spoke it became evident that she was not in a very good humor.
"I don't like Sunday," she asserted, with the air of wishing to shock somebody.
Emma exclaimed, "Oh, Gladys!" and looked at Mrs. Morrison to see the effect of this remark upon her; but apparently it hadn't any, for the lady went on turning the leaves of the book she held, half smiling.
"I do; why don't you like it, Gladys?" asked Frances.
"You can't do anything you want to do, and everybody is cross or taking a nap. Mamma has a headache, and she said I shouldn't come over here, but I just told her I was coming. I knew she wouldn't care if I didn't bother her."