This particular evening the Doña had decided to consecrate to an exegesis of the doctrine of Transsubstantiation.
When the Doña said that at a certain point of the mass the bread turned to the actual flesh and blood and bones of Jesus, Anna’s face assumed an expression of dogged scepticism, and having decided that she must ask Teresa about it, continued her own thoughts: Mamselle, who gave her French lessons in Cambridge, had fired her imagination with accounts of the _bouktis_ they used to have in the Surbiton family where she was once governess—“_vraiment, c’était passionant; je me demande pourquoi Dr. Sinclair n’organise pas des bouktis à Trinité—ça serait très amusant pour les jeunes gens_....” It _was_ a good idea! All the people with buried names of books, and having to guess. Oh, yes!... one could go with a lot of little lambs’ tails sewed on one’s frock ... yes, but how was one going to get in the “_of Shakespeare_”.... _Of course_ ... what a goose she was not to have realised it before ... _bouktis_ was Mamselle’s way of saying “book-teas” ... that’s what the parties were called—“book-teas.”
Thus Anna; as to Jasper—if one could reduce the instantaneous and fantastic picture produced on his mind to a definite consecutive statement, it would read something like this: By the powerful spells of a clergyman, who was also a magician, pieces of bread were turned into tiny men—long-robed, bearded, and wearing golden straw hats of which nothing but the brim could be seen from in front. Then the clergyman distributed to every one at the party one of the tiny men, to be their very own. They each, forthwith, swallowed their tiny man, and he made himself a little nest in their stomachs, whence he could be summoned to be played with whenever they liked.
He began jumping up and down, his body trembling like that of an excited terrier.
“Oh, I want, I want, I want some of that bread,” he cried. “Oh, when can I have it, Doña? Oh, I can’t wait!”
Needless to say, the Doña was not in the least taken in—she did not take it for a sign of Grace, nor did it seem to her in the least touching; but she knew it would strike Jollypot as being both, and the picture she foresaw that the incident would produce on her—that of the innocent little pagan calling aloud to God for the spiritual food that was his birthright—was one that the Doña felt would be both soothing, and expressive of the way in which she would have liked the incident to have appeared to herself.