It was ten minutes after eleven when the Millses reached St. Barnabas and the party went down the aisle pursued by an usher to the chanting of the Venite, exultemus Domino. The usher, caught off guard, was guiltily conscious of having a few minutes before filled the Mills pew with strangers in accordance with the rule that reserved seats for their owners only until the processional. Mills, his silk hat on his arm, had not foreseen such a predicament. He paused in perplexity beside the ancestral pew in which five strangers were devoutly reinforcing the chanting of the choir, happily unaware that they were trespassers upon the property of Franklin Mills.
The courteous usher lifted his hand to indicate his mastery of the situation and guided the Mills party in front of the chancel to seats in the south transept. This maneuver had the effect of publishing to the congregation the fact that Franklin Mills, his son, daughter-in-law and daughter, were today breaking an abstinence from divine worship which regular attendants knew to have been prolonged.
Constance, Leila and Shepherd knelt at once; Mills remained standing. A lady behind him thrust a prayer book into his hand. In trying to find his glasses he dropped the book, which Leila, much diverted, recovered as she rose. This was annoying and added to Mills’s discomfiture at being planted in the front seat of the transept where the whole congregation could observe him at leisure.
However, by the time the proper psalms for the day had been read he had recovered his composure and listened attentively to Doctor Lindley’s sonorous reading of the lessons. His seat enabled him to contemplate the Mills memorial window in the north transept, a fact which mitigated his discomfort at being deprived of the Mills pew.
Leila stifled a yawn as the rector introduced as the preacher for the day a missionary bishop who had spent many years in the Orient. Mills had always been impatient of missionary work among peoples who, as he viewed the matter, were entitled to live their lives and worship their gods without interference by meddlesome foreigners. But the discourse appealed strongly to his practical sense. He saw in the schools and hospitals established by the church in China a splendid advertisement of American good will and enterprise. Such philanthropies were calculated to broaden the market for American trade. When Doctor Lindley announced that the offerings for the day would go to the visitor to assist in the building of a new hospital in his far-away diocese, Mills found a hundred dollar bill to lay on the plate....
III
As they drove to Shepherd’s for dinner he good-naturedly combated Constance’s assertion that Confucius was as great a teacher as Christ. Leila said she’d like to adopt a Chinese baby; the Chinese babies in the movies were always so cute. Shepherd’s philanthropic nature had been deeply impressed by the idea of reducing human suffering through foreign missions. He announced that he would send the bishop a check.
“Well, I claim it was a good sermon,” said Leila. “That funny old bird talked a hundred berries out of Dada.”
When they reached the table, Mills reproved Leila for asserting that she guessed she was a Buddhist. She confessed under direct examination that she knew nothing about Buddhism but thought it might be worth taking up sometime.
“Millie says there’s nothing in the Bible so wonderful as the world itself,” Leila continued. “Millie has marvelous ideas. Talk about miracles—she says the grass and the sunrise are miracles.”