He did a certain amount of serious reading every year.

On Sunday mornings, during the service, Elizabeth earnestly tried to

banish all worldly thoughts. In spite of this resolve, however, she was

always conscious of a certain regret that the choir seats necessitated

turning her profile to the congregation. At the age of twelve she had

decided that her nose was too short, and nothing had happened since

to change her conviction. She seldom so much as glanced at the

congregation. During her slow progress up and down the main aisle behind

the Courtney boy, who was still a soprano and who carried the great gold

cross, she always looked straight ahead. Or rather, although she was

unconscious of this, slightly up. She always looked up when she sang,

for she had commenced to take singing lessons when the piano music rack

was high above her head.

So she still lifted her eyes as she went up the aisle, and was extremely

serious over the whole thing. Because it is a solemn matter to take a

number of people who have been up to that moment engrossed in thoughts

of food or golf or servants or business, and in the twinkling of an eye,

as the prayer book said about death, turn their minds to worship.

Nevertheless, although she never looked at the pews, she was always

conscious of two of them. The one near the pulpit was the Sayres' and it

was the social calendar of the town. When Mrs. Sayre was in it, it was

the social season. One never knew when Mrs. Sayre's butler would call up

and say: "I am speaking for Mrs. Sayre. Mrs. Sayre would like to have the

pleasure of Miss Wheeler's company on Thursday to luncheon, at

one-thirty."

When the Sayre pew was empty, the town knew, if it happened to be

winter, that the Florida or Santa Barbara season was on; or in summer

the Maine coast.

The other pew was at the back of the church. Always it had one occupant;

sometimes it had three. But the behavior of this pew was very erratic.

Sometimes an elderly and portly gentleman with white hair and fierce

eyebrows would come in when the sermon was almost over. Again, a hand

would reach through the grill behind it, and a tall young man who

had had his eyes fixed in the proper direction, but not always on

the rector, would reach for his hat, get up and slip out. On these

occasions, however, he would first identify the owner of the hand and

then bend over the one permanent occupant of the pew, a little old lady.

His speech was as Yea, yea, or Nay, nay, for he either said, "I'll be

back for dinner," or "Don't look for me until you see me."




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