Andy stared at his small visitor, then glanced out of the window towards the place, beyond the churchyard hedge, where Brother Gulielmus slept in faith: then he sighed and returned to Sally.
“Well, then,” said Sally, dragging Jimmy forward suddenly from his orange, “I want you to begin on him. He’s been _so_ bad the last three days. He doesn’t _mean_ to be, and I didn’t much mind him breaking my dolly, but now he’s pulled the blue china teapot off the table in the best room and smashed that, and we daren’t tell mammy, so we came out. I was minding him,” wept Sally, descending to tears at last, “but how _can_ you mind anybody that won’t be minded?”
Jimmy turned very red and eyed his sister’s tears askance, but he planted his legs wide apart and said sturdily—
Jimmy glared at him for a moment, then flew, all arms and legs, across the room and began to pommel such portions of his Vicar’s person as he could reach.
“I _do_ love Sally. I _do_ love Sally. Naughty Parson Andy!” he bellowed.
“Oh, Jimmy,” cried Sally, shocked out of her tears, and clasping her little thin hands distractedly. “You mustn’t call him that. Mammy said he would never let us come here any more if we did—never.”
“No more chocs. No more noranges!” he wept. “I will be a good boy, I will.”
“He can’t help being a bad boy,” wept Sally in concert. “But I brought him for you to make him _want_ to be good.”
“I like you to call me Parson Andy,” said that gentleman, pulling up a weeping parishioner upon each knee, and proceeding to administer choice bits of bread and butter laden with marmalade to each in turn, with the tale of “The White Cat” as a mental restorative.
It was upon this group that Mrs. Stamford was ushered in by the excited little maid-servant.
“Sorry to interrupt you at breakfast, but——” began Mrs. Stamford. Then she broke off. “What’s this?”
“A lady and gentleman who called to consult me in a spiritual difficulty,” said Andy, rising. “I’ll see them to the door and then I am at your service.”
Mrs. Stamford sat down, her old tweed skirt very wet about the hem with crossing the grass field, and her weather-beaten hat well over her eyes, but her appearance indefinably more emotional than usual.
“I’ve come,” she said without further circumlocution, “to tell you we shall be obliged to have the wedding at Gaythorpe Church.”