"If it had been anyone but the Bishop," she went on, "I should have refused, for there are untold possibilities of danger in trout fishing. You must, for example, guard against imbedding the fish hook in the flesh, which is most painful, often leading to blood-poisoning. This is to say nothing of the risk in sitting on damp grass, or the stings of insects."
"Did you ever sit on the sting of an insect, please?" questioned The Seraph eagerly.
Mrs. Handsomebody looked at him sharply. "One more question of that character," she said, "and you will remain at home." Then, glancing around the table, she went on—"What! your eggs gone so soon? We shall give thanks then. Alexander"—to The Seraph—"It is your turn to say grace. Proceed."
The Seraph, with folded hands and bent head, repeated glibly:
"Accept our thanks, O Lord, for these Thy good cweatures given to our use, and by them fit us for Thy service. Amen."
There was a scraping of chairs, and we got to our feet. The Seraph, holding his bit of egg shell in his warm little palm asked—"Is an egg a cweature, yet?"
Mrs. Handsomebody gloomed down at him from her height. "I say it in all solemnity, Alexander, the natural bent of your mind is toward the ribald and cynical. I do what I can to curb it, but I fear for your future." And she swept from the room.
Eagerly we took our places in the choir stalls that morning.
The May sunshine had taken on the mellowness of summer, and it struck fire from the sacred vessels on the altar, and the brazen-winged eagle of the lectern. Strange-shaped patterns of wine-colour and violet were cast from the stained glass windows upon the walls and pillars, enriching the grey fabric of the church, like tropic flowers. The window nearest me was a favourite of ours. It was dedicated, so saith the bronze tablet beneath, to the memory of Cosmo John, fifth son of an Earl of Aberfalden. He had died at the age of fifteen, not a tender age to me, but the age toward which I was eagerly straining, the vigourous, untrammelled age of the big boy.
I stared at the young knight in the red cloak who, to me, represented Cosmo John, and thought it a great pity that he should have gone off in such a hurry, just when life was opening up such happy vistas before him, vistas no longer patrolled by governesses and maid servants, nor hedged in by petty restrictions. Cosmo John had died one hundred years ago, in May—and, by the Rood! this was May! Had he ever been a-fishing. Had the sudden tremor of the rod made his young heart to leap? I heard the Bishop's rich voice roll on: