“So you were speaking to her?” said Davy.
“No, but didn’t she sing?” said Lovi-bond. “Such tones, soft and tremulous, rising and falling, the same as—as—.”
“Same as the lark’s, mate,” said Davy, eagerly; “same as the lark’s—first a burst and a mount and then a trimble and a tumble, as if she’d got a drink of water out of the clouds of heaven, and was singing and swallowing together—I know the sort; go on.”
Lovibond had kept pace with Davy’s warmth, but now he paused and said quietly, “I’m afraid she’s in trouble.”
“Poor thing!” said Davy. “How’s that, mate?”
“People can never disguise their feelings in singing a hymn,” said Lovibond.
“You say true, mate,” said Davy; “nor in giving one out neither. Now, there was old Kinvig. He had a sow once that wasn’t too reg’lar in her pigging. Sometimes she gave many, and sometimes she gave few, and sometimes she gave none. She was a hit-and-a-missy sort of a sow, you might say. But you always know’d how the ould sow done, by the way Kinvig gave out the hymn. If it was six he was as loud as a clarnet, and if it was one his voice was like the tram-bones. But go on about the girl.”
“That’s all,” said Lovibond. “When the service was over I walked down the aisle behind her, and touched her dress with my hand, and somehow—”
“I know,” cried Davy. “Gave you a kind of ‘lectricity shock, didn’t it? Lord alive, mate, girls is quare things.”
“Then she walked off the other way,” said Lovibond.