‘It was the Christmas-day next after your birth,’ he said. ‘I remember that, for we took you to spend Christmas at the nearest station of troops, and the chaplain christened you.’
Lucy wrote down the particulars, and exclaimed, ‘What an old baby I must have been! Six months old! And I wonder when Sophy was christened. I never knew who any of her godfathers and godmothers were. Did you, Sophy?’
A sudden flush of colour came over his face, and he left the room in haste.
‘Why, Sophy!’ exclaimed Lucy, ‘one would think you had not been christened at all!’
Even the light Lucy was alarmed at the sound of her own words. The same idea had thrilled across Albinia; but on turning her eyes on Sophy, she saw a countenance flushed, anxious, but full rather of trembling hope than of dismay.
In a few seconds Mr. Kendal came back with a thick red pocket-book in his hand, and produced the certificate of the private baptism of Sophia, daughter of Edmund and Lucy Kendal, at Talloon, March 17th, 1838.
Sophy’s face had more disappointment in it than satisfaction.
‘I can explain the circumstances to you now,’ said her father. ‘At Talloon we were almost out of reach of any chaplains, and, as you know, were almost the only English. We always intended to take you to the nearest station, as had been done with Lucy, but your dear mother was never well enough to bear the journey; and when our next little one was born, it was so plain that he could not live, that I sent in haste to beg that the chaplain would come to us. It was then that you were both baptized, and before the week was over, he buried little Henry. It was the first of our troubles. We never again had health or spirits for any festive occasion while we continued in India, and thus the ceremony was never completed. In fact, I take shame to myself for having entirely forgotten that you had never been received into the congregation.’
‘Then I have told a falsehood whenever I said the Catechism!’ burst out Sophy. Lucy would have laughed, and Albinia could almost have been amused at the turn her displeasure had taken.
‘It was not your fault,’ said Mr. Kendal, quietly.
He evidently wished the subject to be at an end, excepting that in silence he laid before Albinia’s eyes the certificate of the baptism of the twin-brothers, not long after the first arrival in India. He then put the book in his pocket, and began, as usual, to read aloud.