Nevertheless, her first spoken words after the service would not have seemed to many to be in keeping with the hour—
"John, what on earth is the matter with that organ?"
Despite the habitual frown on John's face, he was betrayed into a laugh, there was so much intensity in the questioner's voice.
"Why, it needs a drop or two of oil," he said promptly; "and has needed it ever since I can remember. Anybody would think they considered the squeak an addition to the music, by the way they hang on to it."
"Is it possible that a little oil is all that is needed to stop that horrible sound? Why don't you fix it?"
"I?" said John, turning full, astonished eyes on her, surprised out of his reserve and his frowns.
"Why, certainly; how can you endure it for so long? Do, John, fix it before next Sunday; it spoils the music. I could hardly enjoy even the words, because of that dreadful sound. How many things there are that ought to be done here. Why do they leave the church in this shape? Isn't there a sexton?"
"Why, yes," said John, "I suppose so. Of course there must be; he rings the bell and makes the fires."
"But never sweeps," added Louise, smiling, "nor dusts. John, if you can prevail on him to do some sweeping this week, I'll come down with you, when you come to oil that organ, and do the dusting. Wouldn't that be an improvement?"
"When you come to oil that organ!" The sentence had so strange a sound that John repeated it to himself. Was it possible that he was coming to oil the church organ? She spoke very confidently, quite as though it were a settled matter. And yet he would almost as soon have expected to see himself coming to preach the sermon! What would the people think of his going into the church on a week day? No one remembered better than he that of late his presence on the Sabbath had been a rarity. He had been on the verge of telling her that he had not been hired to keep the church in order, but neither had she been hired to dust it; and he was quick-witted enough to see that after the dusting scheme was proposed his subterfuge would not do.