Shirley

the single bell tolled slowly, another and another elderly parishioner came dropping in, and took a humble station in the free sittings. It is always the frailest, the oldest, and the poorest that brave the worst weather, to prove and maintain their constancy to dear old mother Church: this wild morning, not one affluent family attended, not one carriage party appeared – all the lined and cushioned pews were empty; only on the bare oaken seats sat ranged the grey-haired elders and feeble paupers.
    »I'll scorn her, if she does n't come,« muttered Martin shortly and savagely to himself. The Rector's shovel-hat had passed the porch: Mr. Helstone and his clerk were in the vestry.
    The bells ceased – the reading-desk was filled – the doors were closed – the service commenced: void stood the Rectory-pew – she was not there: Martin scorned her.
    »Worthless thing! Vapid thing! Commonplace humbug! Like all other girls – weakly, selfish, shallow!«
    Such was Martin's liturgy.
    »She is not like our picture: her eyes are not large and expressive: her nose is not straight, delicate, Hellenic: her mouth has not that charm I thought it had – which, I imagined, could beguile me of sullenness in my worst moods. What is she? A thread-paper, a doll, a toy – a
girl,
in short.«
    So absorbed was the young cynic, he forgot to rise from his knees at the proper place, and was still in an exemplary attitude of devotion when – the litany over – the first hymn was given out. To be so caught did not contribute to soothe him: he started up red (for he was as sensitive to ridicule as any girl). To make the matter worse, the church-door had re-opened, and the aisles were filling: patter, patter, patter, a hundred little feet trotted in. It was the Sunday-scholars. According to Briarfield winter custom, these children had till now been kept where there was a warm stove, and only led into church just before the Communion and Sermon.
    The little ones were settled first, and at last, when the boys and the younger girls were all arranged – when the organ was swelling high, and the choir and congregation were rising to uplift a spiritual song – a tall class of young women came quietly in, closing the procession. Their teacher, having seen them seated, passed into the Rectory-pew. The French-grey cloak and small beaver bonnet were known to Martin: it was the very costume his eyes had ached to catch. Miss Helstone had not suffered the storm to prove an impediment: after all, she was come to church. Martin probably whispered his satisfaction to his hymn-book; at any rate, he therewith hid his face two minutes.
    Satisfied or not, he had time to get very angry with her again before the sermon was over; she had never once looked his way: at least, he had not been so lucky as to encounter a glance.
    »If,« he said – »if she takes no notice of me; if she shows I am not in her thoughts, I shall have a worse, a meaner opinion of her than ever. Most despicable would it be to come for the sake of those sheep-faced Sunday-scholars, and not for my sake, or that long skeleton Moore's.«
    The sermon found an end; the benediction was pronounced; the congregation dispersed: she had not been near him.
    Now, indeed, as Martin set his face homeward, he felt that the sleet was sharp, and the east wind cold.
    His nearest way lay through some fields: it was a dangerous, because an untrodden way: he did not care; he would take it. Near the second stile rose a clump of trees: was that an umbrella waiting there? Yes: an umbrella held with evident difficulty against the blast: behind it fluttered a French-grey cloak. Martin grinned as he toiled up the steep encumbered field, difficult to the foot as a slope in the upper realms of Etna. There was an inimitable look in his face when, having gained the stile, he seated himself coolly thereupon, and thus opened a conference which, for his own part, he was willing to prolong indefinitely.
    »I think you had better strike a bargain: exchange me for Mrs. Pryor.«
    »I was not sure whether you would come this way, Martin; but I thought I would run the chance: there is no such thing as getting a quiet word spoken in the church or churchyard.«
    »Will you agree? Make over Mrs. Pryor to my mother, and put me in her skirts?«
    »As if I could understand you! What puts Mrs. Pryor into your head?«
    »You call her ›mamma,‹ don't you?«
    »She
is
my mamma.«
    »Not possible – or so inefficient, so careless