Confirmation. She had seen a Confirmation once, years ago. Girls in white dresses and long white veils, like brides, shining behind the square black windows of the broughams. Dora and Effie Draper. Effie leaned forward. Her pretty, piercing face looked out through the black pane, not seeing anything, trying greedily to be seen. Big boys and girls knelt down in rows before the Bishop, and his sleeves went flapping up and down over them like bolsters in the wind.
Mr. Farmer was looking at her again, as if he had an idea in his head.
IX.
The Church Service was open at the Thirty-Nine Articles. Mamma had pushed
Dr. Smith's "History of England" away.
"Do you think," she said, "you could say the Catechism and the Athanasian
Creed straight through without stopping?"
"I daresay I could if I tried. Why?"
"Because Mr. Farmer will want to examine you."
"Whatever for?"
"Because," her mother said, "there's going to be a Confirmation. It's time you were thinking about being confirmed."
"Confirmed? Me?"