But Jack broke in, “ ’pon my word, if it wasn’t Sunday, I declare I’d go out and try and catch some of his precious beasties for him.”
“Well, I’ll go and feed his gold fish now,” said Di, getting up from the table, whilst Phoena, without announcing her intentions, went to attend the canary and guinea-pig.
“We’ve all got to start by half-past ten for church, remember,” said Di, looking back from the door.
“All right,” said the boys—they were delightfully docile to-day.
“And you’ll remember to keep quiet, because of Andrew,” added Di.
And so, though Fay was not there to marshal her flock into good order, it was a very well-behaved party that set out from Gaybrook Farm for the parish church, on that summer Sunday morning.
“And they all behaved like models all through the service,” reported Ruth, who had watched them rather anxiously from her exalted seat in the gallery, “I was rather afraid how the young gentlemen might behave, if anything went wrong with the singing, as does sometimes happen, or if the sermon was extra long,” she confided to Mrs. Busson.
“Then more shame for you,” her Aunt had replied severely, “haven’t they always behaved like little gentlemen in my house, so would they be likely to forget manners in the House of God.”
“All the same,” said Ruth, “little Miss Marion did look straight at the sight of the high pews, as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I believe she was a bit frightened.”
Gaybrook Church, with its mossy leaning grave-stones on the outside, and its old-world galleries and pews inside, along with its service which had been unaltered for the last fifty years, were all of the most ancient description. So that both Hubert and Marygold, who had never in their short lives been in a high pew before, were almost alarmed when they were shut into one of these formidable-looking boxes, which, as Marygold remarked afterwards, “didn’t smell at all nice.”