“Oh, it is so much nicer there for the Sunday work,” said Tasie; “though I love dear little Bordighera too. But the Sunday-school is a trial. To give up one’s afternoons and take a great deal of trouble for perhaps three children! Of course, papa, I know it is my duty.”
“And quite as much your duty, if there were but one; for, think, if you saved but one soul,—is that not worth living for, Tasie?” Mr Durant said.
“Oh yes, yes, papa. I only say it is a little hard. Of course that is the test of duty. Tell Frances, please, when you write, Miss Waring, there is to be a bazaar for the new church; and I daresay she could send or do me something—two or three of her nice little sketches. People like that sort of thing. Generally things at bazaars are so useless. Knitted things, everybody has got such shoals of them; but a water-colour—you know that always sells.”
“I will tell Fan,” said Constance, “when I write—but that is not often. We are neither of us very good correspondents.”
“You should tell your papa,” went on Mrs Durant, “of that little place which I always say I discovered, Miss Waring. Such a nice little place, and quite cool and cheap. Nobody goes; there is not a tourist passing by once in a fortnight. Mr Waring would like it, I know. Don’t you think Mr Waring would like it, papa?”
“That depends, my dear, upon so many circumstances over which he has no control—such as, which way the wind is blowing, and if he has the books he wants, and——”
“Papa, you must not laugh at Mr Waring. He is a dear. I will not hear a word that is not nice of Mr Waring,” cried Tasie.
This championship of her father was more than Constance could bear. She rose from her seat quickly, and declared that she must go.
“So soon?” said Mrs Durant, holding the hand which Constance had held out to her, and looking up with keen eyes and spectacles. “And we have not said a word yet of the event, and all about it, and why it was. But I think we can give a guess at why it was.”
“What event?” Constance said, with chill surprise: as if she cared what was going on in their little world!