The service at Redmarley Church was "medium high." It boasted an organist and a surpliced choir, and the choir intoned the responses. "The old Vicar," as Mr Molyneux liked to be called, was musical, and saw to it that the Sunday services were melodiously and well rendered. Very rarely was there a week-day service. The villagers would have regarded them in the light of a dangerous innovation; yet, notwithstanding the lack of daily services, the church stood open from sunrise to sunset always, and though very few people ever entered it during the week, they would have been most indignant had it ever been shut.

The church was too big for the village: it was built early in the fourteenth century when the Manor House was a monastery, and at a time when Redmarley was the religious centre for half a dozen outlying villages that now had churches of their own. Therefore, it was never full, and even if every soul in the village had made a point of going to divine service at the same time, it would still have appeared but sparsely attended.

Miss Gallup's seat, with a red cushion and red footstools and everything handsome about it, was about half-way up the aisle on the left.

On the right, one behind the other, were two long oaken pews next the chancel steps belonging to the Manor House. In the one, there were three young women, obviously servants; the front one was empty.

Eloquent began to wish he had not come.

People bustled and creaked and pattered up the aisle after their several fashions. The organist started the voluntary, and the choir came in.

The congregation stood up, when suddenly his aunt gave Eloquent's elbow a jerk, and whispered: "There's Mr Grantly and Miss Mary."

As if he didn't know!

Just the same leisurely, unconscious, strolling walk that got over the ground so much more quickly than one would have thought.

She had changed her clothes and looked, he noted it with positive relief, much more Sundayish. In fact, her costume (Eloquent used this dreadful word) now compared quite favourably with those of the other young ladies of his acquaintance. Not that she in the least resembled them. Not a bit. Her things were ever so much plainer, but Eloquent's eagle eye, trained to acute observation by his long service in the outfitting line, grasped at once that plain as was the dark blue coat and skirt, it was uncommonly well made. She wore blue fox furs, too, hat and stole and muff all matching, and her hair was tied twice with dark blue ribbon, at the nape of the neck and about half-way down.

Yes, M. B. Ffolliot was very tidy indeed. Behind her followed a youth ridiculously like her in feature, but he was half a head taller. He walked with quick, short steps, and had a very flat back and square shoulders. His appearance, even allowing for the high seriousness of an outfitter's point of view, was eminently satisfactory. There was no fleck or speck of fluff or dust or mud about his clothes. He was, Eloquent decided grimly, a "knut" of the nuttiest flavour; from the top of his exceedingly smooth head to his admirable grey spats and well-shaped boots, a thoroughly well-dressed young man.

"Shop, indeed!" thought Eloquent. "He's never seen the wrong side of a counter in his life."

"Rend your hearts and not your garments," so the Vicar adjured the congregation in his agreeable monotone, and the service began.

Eloquent could see Mary's back between the heads of two maids: her hair shone burnished and bright in the lamplight. Just before the psalms she turned and whispered to her brother, and he caught a glimpse of her profile for the space of three seconds.

When the psalms ended, the "knut" came out into the aisle, mounted the steps leading to the lectern, and started to read the first lesson.

"Woe to thee that spoilest and thou wast not spoiled," Grantly Ffolliot began in a voice of thunder. The congregation lifted startled heads, and looked considerably surprised. Grantly was nervous. He read very fast, and so loud that Mary was moved to cover her ears with her hands; and Eloquent saw her and sympathised.

Now here was a matter in which he could give young Ffolliot points and a beating. He longed passionately to stand up at that brass bird and read the Bible to the people of Redmarley; to one person in particular. He knew exactly the pitch of voice necessary to fill a building of that size.

"He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of bribes. . . ."

How curiously applicable certain of Isaiah's exhortations are to the present day, thought Eloquent. . . . The "knut" had somewhat subdued his voice, and even he could not spoil the music and the majesty of the words, "a place of broad rivers and streams wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby." Two more verses, and the first lesson was ended, and Grantly Ffolliot, flushed but supremely thankful, made his way back to his seat.

Eloquent registered a vow.

The vicar himself read the second lesson, and the meditations of the assembled worshippers were undisturbed.

The vicar always preached for exactly ten minutes. He took an old-fashioned hour-glass up into the pulpit with him, and when it ran out he concluded his discourse. Redmarley folk highly approved this ritual. When stray parsons came to preach, especially if they were dignitaries of the church, a body could never tell what they might be at, and the suspense was wearing. Why, the Dean of Garchester had been known to keep on for half an hour.

The Redmarley worshippers rarely slept. It wasn't worth while. Instead, they kept a wary eye upon the hour-glass. They trusted to their vicar's honour, and he rarely failed them. As the last grains of sand ran out he turned to the east, and most people were back home and sitting down to supper by eight o'clock.

Miss Gallup never hurried out of church. She thought it unseemly. Therefore, it came to pass that Eloquent was still standing in his place as Mary Ffolliot and her brother came down the aisle. Mary looked him full in the face as she passed, and smiled frankly at him with friendly recognition.

The "knut" had gone on ahead.

Eloquent gave no answering smile. For one thing, he had never for one moment expected her to take the slightest notice of him, and the fact that she had done so raised a perfect tumult of unexpected and inexplicable emotion.

The hot blood rushed to his face, and there was a singing in his ears. He turned right round and stared down the aisle at her retreating form, and was only roused to a sense of mundane things by a violent poke in the small of his back, and his aunt's voice buzzing in an irritated whisper: "Go on, my boy, do you want to stop here all night?"

"Mr Grantly read very nice, didn't he?"

Miss Gallup remarked complacently, as they were walking home.

"To tell you the truth, Aunt Susan, I thought he read very badly: he bellowed so, and was absolutely wanting in expression."

"Poor young gentleman," Miss Gallup said tolerantly. "Last time he read, back in summer it was, he did read so soft like, no one could hear a word he said, and I know they all went on at him something dreadful, so this time I suppose he thought as they should hear him."

"Do you think," Eloquent asked diffidently, "that Mr Molyneux would like me to read the lessons some Sunday when I'm down here?"

Miss Gallup stopped short.

"Well, now," she exclaimed, "to think of you suggestin' that, an' I was just wonderin' at that very minute whether if I was to ask you—you'd snap my head off, you being chapel and all."

Eloquent longed to say that he was not so wrapped up in chapel as all that, but long habits of self-restraint stood him in good stead. Where possible votes were concerned it did not do to speak the thought of the moment, so he merely remarked indifferently that he'd be "pleased to be of any assistance."

"Of course," Miss Gallup continued, as she walked on, "there's no knowing whether, with the election coming on and all, the vicar might think it quite suitable, though he's generally glad to get any one to read as will."

"Surely," Eloquent said severely, "he does not carry his political views into his religious life, to the extent of boycotting those who do not agree with him."

"It's his church," Miss Gallup rejoined stoutly; "no one can read in it without 'tis his wish."

"My dear aunt, you surely don't imagine that I want to read the lessons at Redmarley except as a matter of kindness . . . assistance to Mr Molyneux. What other reason can I have?"

"Well," said Miss Gallup, shrewdly, "it might be that you wanted to show how well you could do it . . ." she paused.

Eloquent blushed in the darkness.

"And with an election coming on, you never know what motives folks has," she continued. "But it's my belief Mr Molyneux'd be pleased as Punch. He's all for friendliness, he is. I know who wouldn't be pleased, though——"

"Who is that?" asked Eloquent, as his aunt had stopped, evidently waiting to be questioned.

"Why, Mr Ffolliot; he don't take much part in politics, but he thinks Redmarley belongs to him, and he'd be mighty astonished if you was to get up and read in the parish church, and him not been told anything about it."

"I shall certainly call on Mr Molyneux tomorrow," said Eloquent.