“I'm going too. I've got the brougham. I'll drive her home,” said Alicia, and went out swiftly.
“My goodness!” Hilda remarked again. Then she got up and found her slippers and wrote a note, which she addressed to the Reverend Stephen Arnold, Clarke Mission House, College Street. “Thanks immensely,” it ran, “for your delightful offer to introduce me to Father Jordan and persuade him to show me the astronomical wonders he keeps in his tower at St. Simeon's. An hour with a Jesuit is an hour of milk and honey, and belonging to that charming Order, he won't mind my coming on a Sunday evening—the first clear one.”
Miss Howe signed her note and bit consideringly at the end of her pen. Then she added: “If you have any influence with Duff Lindsay, it may be news to you that you can exert it with advantage to keep him from marrying a cheap ethereal little religieuse of the Salvation Army named Filbert. It may seem more fitting that you should expostulate with her, but I don't advise that.”
CHAPTER X
The door of Ensign Sand's apartment stood open with a purposeful air when Captain Filbert reached headquarters that evening; but in any case it is likely that she would have gone in. Mrs. Sand walked the floor, carrying a baby, a pale sticky baby with blotches, which had inherited from its maternal parent a conspicuous lack of buttons. Mrs. Sand's room was also ornamented with texts, but they had apparently been selected at random, and they certainly hung that way. The piety of the place seemed at the control of an older infant, who sat on the floor and played with his father's regimental cap. On the other side of the curtain Captain Sand audibly washed himself and brushed his hair.
“What kind of meetin' did you have?” asked Mrs. Sand. “There—there now; he shall have his bottle, so he shall!”
“A beautiful meeting. Abraham Lincoln White, the Savannah negro, you know, came as a believer for the first time, and so did Miss Rozario from Whiteaway and Laidlaw's. We had such a happy time.”
“What sort of collection?”
Laura opened a knotted handkerchief and counted out some copper coins.