Miss Augustine was very self-absorbed, and very much accustomed (though she thought otherwise) to have everything her own way, and when she perceived that this new petition of hers was not added to the prayer for her family, she disregarded James Tolladay’s clerkly leading of the responses even more than John Simmons did. She made a little pause, and repeated it herself, in an audible voice, and then said her Amen, keeping everybody waiting for her, and Dr. Richard standing mute and red on the chancel steps, with the words, as it might be, taken out of his very lips. When they all came out of chapel, Mrs. Matthews had a private interview with Miss Augustine, which detained her, and it was not till after the old people had dispersed to their cottages that she made her way over to the clock-tower in which the chaplain’s rooms were situated. “You did not pray for my people, as I asked you,” said Augustine, looking at him with her pale blue eyes. She was not angry or irritable, but asked the question softly. Dr. Richard had been waiting for her in his dining-room, which was a quaint room over the archway, with one window looking to the road, another to the garden. He was seated by the table, his wife beside him, who had not yet taken off her bonnet, and who held her smelling-salts in her hand.
“Miss Augustine,” said the chaplain, with a little flush on his innocent aged face. He was a plump, neat little old man, with the red and white of a girl in his gentle countenance. He had risen up when she entered, but being somewhat nervous sat down again, though she never sat down. “Miss Augustine,” he said, solemnly, “I have told you before, I cannot do anything, even to oblige you, which is against Church law and every sound principle. Whatever happens to me, I must be guided by law.”
“Does law forbid you to pray for your fellow-creatures who are in temptation?” said Miss Augustine, without any change of her serious abstracted countenance.
“Miss Augustine, this is a question in which I cannot be dictated to,” said the old gentleman, growing redder. “I will ask the prayers of the congregation for any special person who may be in trouble, sorrow, or distress, before the Litany, or the collect for all conditions of men, making a pause at the appropriate petition, as is my duty; but I cannot go beyond the rubrics, whatever it may cost me,” said Dr. Richard, with a look of determined resolution, as though he looked for nothing better than to be led immediately to the stake. And his wife fixed her eyes upon him admiringly, backing him up; and put, with a little pressure of his fingers, her smelling-salts into his hand.
“In that case,” said Miss Augustine, in her abstract way, “in that case—I will not ask you; but it is a pity the rubrics should say it is your duty not to pray for any one in temptation; it was Susan,” she added, softly, with a sigh.
“Miss Susan!” said the chaplain, growing hotter than ever at the thought that he had nearly been betrayed into the impertinence of praying for a person whom he so much respected. He was horrified at the risk he had run. “Miss Augustine,” he said, severely, “if my conscience had permitted me to do this, which I am glad it did not, what would your sister have said? I could never have looked her in the face again, after taking such a liberty with her.”
“We could never have looked her in the face again,” echoed Mrs. Richard; “but, thank God, my dear, you stood fast!”
“Yes. I hope true Church principles and a strong resolution will always save me,” said the Doctor, with gentle humility, “and that I may always have the resolution to stand fast.”
Miss Augustine made no reply to this for the moment. Then she said, without any change of tone, “Say, to-morrow, please, that prayers are requested for Susan Austin, on a voyage, and in temptation abroad.”
“My dear Miss Augustine!” said the unhappy clergyman, taking a sniff at the salts, which now were truly needed.