“Fancy him turning out so—good!” cried Jill wonderingly. “He really almost—preached. I was surprised!”
“Humph!” returned Jack vaguely, for the figure of the old soldier saluting his Captain had made too deep an impression on his heart to be lightly discussed. “Christ, the Captain!” The idea appealed to his boyish instincts, and awoke a new ambition. Hitherto he had looked upon religion as a thing apart from his own life, the monopoly of women and clergymen, whose business it was; now for the first time it appealed to him as a fine and manly virtue.
Sitting by his lonely fireside, General Digby reproached himself for his lack of influence on his new friends. He would have been a happy man if he had known that by God’s grace he had that afternoon planted a seed for God in Jack Trevor’s careless heart. “Christ, the Captain!” To the last day of the boy’s life he never forgot those words, nor the picture of the old soldier with his hand raised to the salute.
Chapter Eleven.
Betty and Cynthia meet.
“Jill, do you know where my green check blouse has gone? I can’t find it anywhere.”
“How should I know? I haven’t taken it—wouldn’t be seen in the horrid old thing! Why are you worrying if it has disappeared? I thought you said the other day that it was too shabby to wear any more?”
“So I did, but I want the buttons to put on a new blouse. It was hanging up in my cupboard last week.”