Page:The Last Chronicle of Barset Vol 1.djvu/155

Rh "It ain't ten minutes since Hopkins let me come with the barrows, miss."

"Then Hopkins is a traitor. Never mind. You'd better begin now,—up there at the steps. It'll be quite dark in a few minutes. Here's Mrs. Giles with her broom. Come, Mrs. Giles; we shall have to pass the night here if you don't make haste. Are you cold, Grace?"

"No; I'm not cold. I'm thinking what they are doing now in the church at Hogglestock."

"The Hogglestock church is not pretty;—like this?"

"Oh, no. It is a very plain brick building, with something like a pigeon-house for a belfry. And the pulpit is over the reading-desk, and the reading-desk over the clerk, so that papa, when he preaches, is nearly up to the ceiling. And the whole place is divided into pews, in which the farmers hide themselves when they come to church."

"So that nobody can see whether they go to sleep or no. Oh, Mrs. Giles, you mustn't pull that down. That's what we have been putting up all day."

"But it be in the way, miss; so that the minister can't budge in or out o' the door."

"Never mind. Then he must stay one side or the other. That would be too much after all our trouble!" And Miss Dale hurried across the chancel to save some prettily arching boughs, which, in the judgment of Mrs. Giles, encroached too much on the vestry door. "As if it signified which side he was," she said in a whisper to Grace.

"I don't suppose they'll have anything in the church at home," said Grace.

"Somebody will stick up a wreath or two, I daresay."

"Nobody will. There never is anybody at Hogglestock to stick up wreaths, or to do anything for the prettinesses of life. And now there will be less done than ever. How can mamma look after holly-leaves in her present state? And yet she will miss them, too. Poor mamma sees very little that is pretty; but she has not forgotten how pleasant pretty things are."

"I wish I knew your mother, Grace."

"I think it would be impossible for any one to know mamma now,—for any one who had not known her before. She never makes even a new acquaintance. She seems to think that there is nothing left for her in the world but to try and keep papa out of misery. And she does not succeed in that. Poor papa!"

"Is he very unhappy about this wicked accusation?"