"The church needed his authoritative speech," said Mr. Southard, with decision. "To the minister of God belongs the voice of denunciation as well as the voice of prayer."
Mr. Lewis gave his moustache an impatient twitch.
Mr. Granger seized the first opportunity to speak aside to Margaret. "You like these people? You are contented?" he asked hastily.
"Yes, and yes," she replied.
"You think that you will feel at home when you have become better acquainted with them?" he pursued.
"It seems to me that I have always lived here," she answered, smiling. "There is not the least strangeness. Indeed, surprising things, if they are pleasant, never surprise me. I am always expecting miracles. It is only painful or trivial events which find me incredulous and ill at ease."
The chandeliers were lighted, and the windows closed; but, according to their pleasant occasional custom, the curtains were not drawn for a while yet. If any person in the street took pleasure in seeing this family gathering, they were welcome.
Mrs. Lewis broke a few sprays from a musk-vine over-starred with yellow blossoms, and twined them into a wreath as she slowly approached the two who were standing near a book-case. "Vive le roi!" she said, lifting the wreath to the marble brows of a Shakespeare that stood on the lower shelf.
Margaret glanced along a row of blue and brown covers, and exclaimed, "My Brownings! all hail! there they are!"