Sawyer,
give you?--A good one, I hope?"
A pause followed this guileless question, during which Mary looked on the
ground, Mrs. Cooper murmured: "Oh! dear, oh, dear!" under her breath, and
Patch swallowed visibly before finding voice to reply:
"One, I regret to say, ma'am, he never ought to have preached."
"Poor young man!" she laughed it off. "You're a terribly severe critic,
I'm afraid, Patch. Probably he was nervous."
"And reason enough. You might think Satan himself stood at his elbow, the
wicked things he said."
This statement, coming from the mild and cow-like Mrs. Cooper, caused
Felicia Verity the liveliest surprise. She glanced enquiringly from one
to the other of the little group, reading constraint and hardly repressed
excitement in the countenance of each. Their aspect and behaviour struck
her, in fact, as singular to the point of alarm.
"Mary," she asked, a trifle breathlessly, "has anything happened? Where
is Miss Damaris?"
"Hadn't she got back to The Hard, ma'am, before you came out?"
"No--why should she? You and the other servants always reach home first.
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