LITMIR.BIZ

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      It was Christmastime down at Allington, and at three o’clock on Christmas Eve, just as the darkness of the early winter evening was coming on, Lily Dale and Grace Crawley were seated together, one above the other, on the steps leading up to the pulpit in Allington Church. They had been working all day at the decorations of the church, and they were now looking round them at the result of their handiwork. To an eye unused to the gloom the place would have been nearly dark; but they could see every corner turned by the ivy sprigs, and every line on which the holly-leaves were shining. And the greeneries of the winter had not been stuck up in the old-fashioned, idle way, a bough just fastened up here and a twig inserted there; but everything had been done with some meaning, with some thought towards the original architecture of the building. The Gothic lines had been followed, and all the lower arches which it had been possible to reach with an ordinary ladder had been turned as truly with the laurel cuttings as they had been turned originally with the stone.

      “I wouldn’t tie another twig,” said the elder girl, “for all the Christmas pudding that was ever boiled.”

      “It’s lucky then that there isn’t another twig to tie.”

      “I don’t know about that. I see a score of places where the work has been scamped. This is the sixth time I have done the church, and I don’t think I’ll ever do it again. When we first began it, Bell and I, you know,—before Bell was married,—Mrs. Boyce, and the Boycian establishment generally, used to come and help. Or rather we used to help her. Now she hardly ever looks after it at all.”

      “She is older, I suppose.”

      “She’s a little older, and a deal idler. How idle people do get! Look at him. Since he has had a curate he hardly ever stirs round the parish. And he is getting so fat that— H—sh! Here she is herself,—come to give her judgment upon us.” Then a stout lady, the wife of the vicar, walked slowly up the aisle. “Well, girls,” she said, “you have worked hard, and I am sure Mr. Boyce will be very much obliged to you.”

      “Mr. Boyce, indeed!” said Lily Dale. “We shall expect the whole parish to rise from their seats and thank us. Why didn’t Jane and Bessy come and help us?”

      “They were so tired when they came in from the coal club. Besides, they don’t care for this kind of thing,—not as you do.”

      “Jane is utilitarian to the backbone, I know,” said Lily, “and Bessy doesn’t like getting up ladders.”

      “As for ladders,” said Mrs. Boyce, defending her daughter, “I am not quite sure that Bessy isn’t right. You don’t mean to say that you did all those in the capitals yourself?”

      “Every twig, with Hopkins to hold the ladder and cut the sticks; and as Hopkins is just a hundred and one years old, we could have done it pretty nearly as well alone.”

      “I do not think that,” said Grace.

      “He has been grumbling all the time,” said Lily, “and swears he never will have the laurels so robbed again. Five or six years ago he used to declare that death would certainly save him from the pain of such another desecration before the next Christmas; but he has given up that foolish notion now, and talks as though he meant to protect the Allington shrubs at any rate to the end of this century.”

      “I am sure we gave our share from the parsonage,” said Mrs. Boyce, who never understood a joke.

      “All the best came from the parsonage, as of course they ought,” said Lily. “But Hopkins had to make up the deficiency. And as my uncle told him to take the haycart for them instead of the hand-barrow, he is brokenhearted.”

      “I am sure he was very goodnatured,” said Grace.

      “Nevertheless he is brokenhearted; and I am very goodnatured too, and I am broken-backed. Who is going to preach tomorrow morning, Mrs. Boyce?”

      “Mr. Swanton will preach in the morning.”

      “Tell him not to be long, because of the children’s pudding. Tell Mr. Boyce if he is long, we won’t any of us come next Sunday.”

      “My dear, how can you say such wicked things! I shall not tell him anything of the kind.”

      “That’s not wicked, Mrs. Boyce. If I were to say I had eaten so much lunch that I didn’t want any dinner, you’d understand that. If Mr. Swanton will preach for three-quarters of an hour—”

      “He only preached for three-quarters of an hour once, Lily.”

      “He has been over the half-hour every Sunday since he has been here. His average is over forty minutes, and I say it’s a shame.”

      “It is not a shame at all, Lily,” said Mrs. Boyce, becoming very serious.

      “Look at my uncle; he doesn’t like to go to sleep, and he has to suffer a purgatory in keeping himself awake.”

      “If your uncle is heavy, how can Mr. Swanton help it? If Mr. Dale’s mind were on the subject he would not sleep.”

      “Come, Mrs. Boyce; there’s somebody else sleeps sometimes besides my uncle. When Mr. Boyce puts up his finger and just touches his nose, I know as well as possible why he does it.”

      “Lily Dale, you have no business to say so. It is not true. I don’t know how you can bring yourself to talk in that way of your own clergyman. If I were to tell your mamma she would be shocked.”

      “You won’t be so illnatured, Mrs. Boyce,—after all that I’ve done for the church.”

      “If you’d think more about the clergyman, Lily, and less about the church,” said Mrs. Boyce very sententiously, “more about the matter and less about the manner, more of the reality and less of the form, I think you’d find that your religion would go further with you. Miss Crawley is the daughter of a clergyman, and I’m sure she’ll agree with me.”

      “If she agrees with anybody in scolding me I’ll quarrel with her.”

      “I didn’t mean to scold you, Lily.”

      “I don’t mind it from you, Mrs. Boyce. Indeed, I rather like it. It is a sort of pastoral visitation; and as Mr. Boyce never scolds me himself, of course I take it as coming from him by attorney.” Then there was silence for a minute or two, during which Mrs. Boyce was endeavouring to discover whether Miss Dale was laughing at her or not. As she was not quite certain, she thought at last that she would let the suspected fault pass unobserved. “Don’t wait for us, Mrs. Boyce,” said Lily. “We must remain till Hopkins has sent Gregory to sweep the church out and take away the rubbish. We’ll see that the key is left at Mrs. Giles’s.”

      “Thank you, my dear. Then I may as well go. I thought I’d come in and see that it was all right. I’m sure Mr. Boyce will be very much obliged to you and Miss Crawley. Goodnight, my dear.”

      “Goodnight, Mrs. Boyce; and be sure you don’t let Mr. Swanton be long tomorrow.” To this parting shot Mrs. Boyce made no rejoinder; but she hurried out of the church somewhat the quicker for it, and closed the door after her with something of a slam.

      Of all persons clergymen are the most irreverent in the handling of things supposed to be sacred, and next to them clergymen’s wives, and after them those other ladies, old or young, who take upon themselves semi-clerical duties. And it is natural that it should be so; for is it not said that familiarity does breed contempt? When a parson takes his lay friend over his church on a week day, how much less of the spirit of genuflexion and head-uncovering the clergyman will display than the layman! The parson pulls about the woodwork and knocks about the stonework, as though it were mere wood and stone; and talks aloud in the aisle, and treats even the reading-desk as a common thing; whereas the visitor whispers gently, and carries himself as though even in looking at a church he was bound to regard himself as performing some service that was half divine. Now Lily Dale and Grace Crawley were both accustomed to churches, and had been so long at

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