'My dear Alda, as if such a thing ever happened!'
'Ah! you see I have been so long away as to forget my Lady's manners.'
'Mr. Audley is going, and Fernan was asked, but he is not anything like well enough. So when Mamma and the little ones go to bed, we are to come down and spend the evening with him.'
'Fancy, Wilmet, I have quite been preparing Marilda for her Confirmation. She had hardly been taught anything, and never could have answered the questions if she had not come to me. She is always asking me what Papa said about this and that; and it is quite awkward, she will carry out everything so literally, poor dear girl.'
'Oh! to be sure she is! But just fancy, she keeps a tithe of her pocket-money to give to the Offertory so scrupulously; she would really not buy something she wanted because it would have been just a shilling into her tenth. I'm so glad she is confirmed. I never knew what to do at church before. I couldn't go home by myself, and now a servant always waits for us. Oh! how fast the poor hotel is building again! It will brighten our street a little! Dear me, I did not know how dingy it was!'
Nothing could look dingy where two such fair bright faces were; but Alda's became awe-struck and anxious as she went up to her mother's room. Indeed Mrs. Underwood looked up at her rather confused, and scarcely knowing the fashionable young lady, and it was only when the plumed hat was laid aside, and the two heads laid together, their fair locks mingling, that she knew she had her elder twins again, and stroked their faces with quiet delight.
There was scarcely more than time to kiss the little ones, and contend with Stella's shyness, before first Lance hurried in and then Felix, excused from his work two hours earlier. He could only just run up and dress before he convoyed Geraldine to church, she having the first turn of the chair, helped her to her seat near the Font, and then came back for Fernando, who was under his special charge.
Fernando sat looking very pale, and with the set expression of the mouth that always made Cherry think of Indians at the stake. His little new prayer-book was in his hand, and he was grasping it nervously, but he said nothing, as Felix helped him up and Lance held his crutch for him. It was his first entrance into a place of worship. They had intended to have accustomed him a little to the sights and sounds, but the weather and his ailment had prevented them. He was drawn to the porch, and there Felix partly lifted him out and up the step, while Lance took his hat for him, and as they were both wanted for the choir procession that was to usher the Bishop into church, they had to leave him in his place under Geraldine's protection.