looked blank; and Mr. Arbuton, having quite forgotten what he had said
to provoke this comment now, looked puzzled and answered nothing: for he
had this trait also in common with the sort of Englishman for whom he
was taken, that he never helped out your conversational venture, but if
he failed to respond inwardly, left you with your unaccepted remark upon
your hands, as it were. In his silence, Kitty fell a prey to very evil
thoughts of him, for it made her harmless sally look like a blundering
attack upon him. But just then the driver came to her rescue; he said,
"Gentlemen and ladies, this is the end of the mountain promenade," and,
turning his horse's head, drove rapidly back to the village.

At the foot of the hill they came again to the church, and his
passengers wanted to get out and look into it. "O certainly," said he,
"it isn't finished yet, but you can say as many prayers as you like in
it."

The church was decent and clean, like most Canadian churches, and at
this early hour there was a good number of the villagers at their
devotions. The lithographic pictures of the stations to Calvary were, of
course, on its walls, and there was the ordinary tawdriness of paint and
carving about the high altar.

"I don't like to see these things," said Mrs. Ellison. "It really seems
to savor of idolatry. Don't you think so, Mr. Arbuton?"

"Well, I don't know. I doubt if they're the sort of people to be hurt by
it."

"They need a good stout faith in cold climates, I can tell you," said
the colonel. "It helps to keep them warm. The broad church would be too