Page:Encounters (Bowen).djvu/199

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SUNDAY EVENING


chin from her hands and leant back to look round the shadows of the room, her hands still resting on the back of the chair. She had an eternal youthfulness in gesture and repose. Archie, watching her silhouette against the fading sky, thought she was like a girl of nineteen.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!" intoned Fanny suddenly, echoing the church bell, which was now ringing for late comers with a little note of urgency. "Don't you think we might take Archie to church? It would give him some more to remember. We might arrive before the second lesson, if we started now, and he could sit between Laura and you in rather a dark pew, and share a book, and sing 'Lead, Kindly Light'———"

"Oh, don't, Fanny!"

Fanny had wondered how much of this they were going to stand. She loved to see Gilda defending her lambs. "Oh, it's only that tiresome little Mrs. McKenna," she assured them. "Terribly flippant, isn't she?" She sighed. "I wonder if anyone will ever think of me on Sunday evenings?"

"Only if they want a fourth at bridge,"

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